Soil de-sealing and participatory urban resilience actions: the “Green in Parma” case study

In the last centuries, urban areas have been increasingly facing climate change-related thermal stresses and extreme events. Within this context, soil de-sealing might become a relevant part of urban adaptation processes, as well as an opportunity to activate citizens’ participation, in a bottom-up logic that virtuously integrates top-down interventions. This paper reflects on the outcomes of the applied research experiences with Third Mission traits carried out within the project “Green in Parma”, with the purpose to investigate the role of soil de-sealing in participatory processes, and to face the impacts of climate change with a bottom-up logic. These experiences allowed to gain insight about the role of academic research in this context and to link it to the more traditional Italian top-down urban planning tools. “Green in Parma” was promoted in 2021 by voluntary organizations, private companies, and the University of Parma. The initiative can be divided into a first dissemination module about the multifunctional benefits of green at urban scale, followed by a participatory and co-design module which aims at a bottom-up desealing intervention. Within this second module, several activities are taking place or are being planned. This contribution presents the first phases of these applied experiences, as well as a discussion about the first results and some of the outcomes of the questionnaire proposed to the citizens of Parma on their perception of the local climate change effects.