Climate Maps and Urban Planning in Search of a Reliable Framework for Adapting Cities and Communities to the Impacts of Climate Change

The urban environment is particularly vulnerable to the catastrophic effects of extreme weather events, making it crucial to have a reliable framework in place. Numerous studies have shown how urban geometry, building mate-rials, and vegetation can affect indoor and outdoor comfort. Integrating climate assessments into urban planning can be challenging. This involves linking climate issues iden-tified in an urban context with broader urban planning considerations and tools. The PNRR-Ecosystem of Inno-vation—Vitality Project aims to explore the connections between urban climatology, urban form, and social rela-tions. The project seeks to use climate maps to inform urban planning and design. This contribution documents the development of knowledge that has led to the inves-tigation of climate maps using two documented method-ologies: UCMap (Urban Climate Map) and LCZ (Local Climate Zones). The goal is to identify strengths and weak-nesses to create a potential path for innovation in classi-fying elementary climate units (from LCZ to CAU.us— Climate Adaptive Urban Units) and develop guidelines and design proposals at the urban and detailed climate-proof scale.