Shaping Future Cities: Turning Assessment into Strategies and Actions for Resilience
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 January 2026 | Viewed by 701
Special Issue Editors
Interests: multicriteria analysis; evaluation for decision making; sustainable urban development; sustainable architecture
Interests: multicriteria analysis; strategic evaluation for decision making; sustainable development; urban planning; architecture
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: spatial planning; urban codes and regulations; resilience in spatial planning; resilience in spatial governance; urban planning regulation; urban planning techniques environmental evaluation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The past decade has been the hottest ever recorded, underscoring the urgent need for effective global and European efforts to reduce emissions. In line with the objectives of the European Green Deal, adapting to climate change in urban environments is a key priority. Although urban areas cover only 4% of Europe’s land, they are home to 75% of its population and account for 70% of total emissions, making them central to the green transition.
However, research indicates that fewer than 40% of European governments engage in an efficient planning process for infrastructure investments or systematically assess project quality before implementation.
In this context, two critical issues emerge in advancing climate adaptation in urban areas:
- The use of nature-based solutions and ecosystem approaches to promote biophilic urban design;
- The development and application of decision-making and evaluation tools to support policy choices by assessing the values created and lost through potential transformations.
The aim of this Special Issue is to bring together contributions that explore pathways for the green transition of cities through urban and architectural plans, projects, and policies that foster climate neutrality and resilience. The objective is to highlight the added value of biophilic design approaches and the role of evaluation tools in supporting informed decision-making.
In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome, especially those related to operative, theoretical, and case studies on assessment, planning, and design in support of urban climate adaptation processes. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:
- Multicriteria decision support approaches;
- Value creation;
- Nature-based solutions;
- Ecosystem approach;
- Climate resilient cities;
- Policy-making;
- Sustainable urban policies;
- Sustainability assessment;
- Cost–benefit evaluation;
- Mixed methods.
We look forward to receiving your contributions.
Dr. Beatrice Mecca
Dr. Francesca Abastante
Dr. Ombretta Caldarice
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- climate resilient cities
- sustainability assessment
- nature-based solutions
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