The Green and Blue Infrastructures in “Carbon Neutral” Urban Districts. Strategies and Solutions Towards the New Urban and Climatic Challenges

Climate neutrality by 2050 is a priority objective and to do so, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, increasing energy efficiency and improving the circularity processes of natural and material resources are key-strategies that emerge from European directives. At the heart of these key strategies, the quality of living in urban spaces is of fundamental importance for the ability to adapt and mitigate the increasingly frequent climate changes and start the decarbonization process. The building sector needs increasingly urgent strategies to balance its emissions, as it is responsible for more than 75% of EU greenhouse gas emissions and 40% of energy consumption, so that, reductions, removals, or offsets are needed and not still used systematically in the built environment. This contribution aims to analyze the leading strategies and solutions that can be assigned to green&blue infrastructures, to protect and recover natural capital and water resources, with interventions involving the dimension of water, soil and energy, for the definition of "carbon neutral" and " net-zero water" urban districts, which encourage urban regeneration and the redevelopment of flexible, low-carbon, connected and remotely manageable residential buildings, contributing to the ongoing energy transition and massive reduction of carbon in the atmosphere. After defining the intervention strategies and solutions, an existing case study, the Roman district of INCIS-Decima, will be simulated first in its current state and then according to different redevelopment Scenarios, to verify the validity and replicability of the strategies proposed in different urban contexts. The topic addressed is of great scientific relevance in the light of national and European policies and instruments (present in the EU Next Generation Plan and implemented in Italy by the PNRR), in a systemic perspective of Decarbonization of the existing building stock, of new constructions and of entire urban districts.