Climate and coasts: transdisciplinary research practices for adaptation to climate change in italian coastal territories. – The contribution presents the first results of the Research Project of National Interest PNRR 2022 on the contrast to the effects of climate change on Italian coastal geosystems, entitled “From the Beaches to the Coasts: towards an Integrated Coast Protection”. The PRIN involves a group of researchers from different SSD (lawyers, geographers, urban economists and statisticians) and Italian universities (Bocconi, Cassino, Iuav, Roma Tre, Urbino). The first results that will be illustrated in the article concern the design of collaborative research practices and transdisciplinary open science in the field of integrated coastal zone management and the Atlas of sustainability and integrated coastal management in Italy.

Rethinking the urban role of nature in climate change. The project for an urban green wall. – The paper discusses the Green Urban Oases project that aims to reconverse more than 500,000ha of land into new urban forests and restor about 300,000ha of forests in the Sahel and Central Asia. The project is part of a broader reflection that sees cities at the centre of the debate on climate change and aims to rethink the relationship between society and nature. Since, on the one hand, nature is increasingly becoming a protagonist in the process of urban adaptation, on the other hand it seems continuing to be conceptualised only in terms of human needs.
The aim of this contribution, part of a broader work, is to reflect on the role that nature-based solutions, implemented in particular through the above-mentioned project, have in cities and if they represent ways for the ‘nature’ to go beyond the marginal, passive and anthropocentric interpre-tation it has had until now in climate change depate.

Nature-based solutions and the Erasmus+ program: a combination that can generate socio-environmental value in inner areas. – In areas subject to depopulation, although this trend risks hindering climate adaptation efforts, it also opens up opportunities for renaturalization and ecosystem improvement projects. This article explores the role of nature-based solutions (NbS) in in-land areas, highlighting their potential to promote environmental aware-ness and community involvement. Through a case study on Bergolo (CN), we aim to provide an initial analysis highlighting how the community garden located here can create and renew the social fabric, specifically thanks to the role of the Erasmus+ program. Through a series of semi-structured interviews, this work aims to be a starting point for highlighting how such initiatives increase local awareness of socio-environmental issues and strengthen community ties at both the local and European levels.

The management of water resources in mountain contexts in ecological transition. – The frequency and concatenation of environmental and climatic phenomena requires a reflection on our way of managing the change, and in this direction the principle of “custody of the high lands” enhances the awareness of the communities on ecosystem services related to the precious water resources, essential to the biodiversity and the basis of stable economies for the mountain. The contribution intends to build a critical framework on interventions oriented to stem the water crises, adopted in the most vulnerable national mountain areas but which at-tempt the difficult territorial transition path on the climate tendency scenarios. The strategies will be analyzed, promoted by regional legislation and innovative regulations, for the territorialization of the actions on the management of the resource, but also complex projects and multi-sectoral studies with direct repercussions on physical and cultural landscapes, which therefore lead to inclusive forms of governance and participate.

Marginal Narratives from a “Undisciplined” Excursion to the Architecture Biennale 2021. – If Neil Smith and David Harvey find space at the Arsenale, if at the Giardini the exercise is to dis-explore the Earth, it is because the Biennale is about surveying the crisis space of globalisation: it forces us to interrogate the geopolitical map of contemporaneity between the Anthropocene, techno-capitalism, encroachments and adaptations. This is why we thought of sharing a visit to the Biennale with those geographers for whom the exercise proposed by Architects is essential to our theoretical, disciplinary, ethical, civil and very human present of being geographers.
Our notes in the margin depend on this invitation to investigate the potential of the object of marginality starting from the concept of “hole in the plot - which - nourishes the other plots” (Negarestani, 2021, p. 106). Hole or absence that stands for the missed encounter between Geography (the material on display) and geographical discipline to imagine plots, narratives and “undisciplined” alliances to come.

Potential Impacts of NRRP Investments in Italian Mono-functional or Desertified Realities: Threats and Opportunities. – The contribution aims to reflect on the impact of PNRR plans and programs with particular attention to the sustainability of rural and mountain tourist regions, highlighting territorial criticalities and suggesting greater emphasis on the concept of adaptation and the possible role for activities related to education for the territory. The PNRR provides for a € 6.68 billion loan in the “tourism and culture” sector, which will make it possible to develop innovative actions to implement local development through the new ecological transition criterion. Much emphasis is placed on the digital transition and physical measures of renewal. Many realities of those compatible with these funds fall within rural and mountain areas, often characterized by negative situations up to conditions of real demographic and economic desertification. The poor economic and social sustainability of many peripheral and mono-functional territories, investigated by recent studies in the field, seems to link the transformation of these areas to actions of economic adaptation and diversification linked to climate change, with respect to which climate maps suggest an increase of the impacts in the coming decades. An investment in these areas, perhaps aimed at restoring or physical-functional de-velopment actions, runs the risk of producing little benefits if it is not accompanied by new forms of social, economic and even demographic attractiveness. The systemic vision can make it possible to operate in a more suitable way to the specific local territorial system, while the development of educational paths to the territory open to stakeholders active in the field can increase the possibility of investment success through the sharing and production of open local knowledge to the reproduction and renewal of territorial values as a project for the future of the subjects who live there and who work there.

Urban solidarity networks as antidote for global epidemics. – The Covid-19 emergency leads us to reflect upon the issues related to the unpredicta-bility and exceptionality of the phenomenon, introducing new reforms that are in stark contrast with the practices of local contexts. In this sce-nario the city can become the place where the “metabolization” of crisis phenomena takes place through widespread forms of adaptation. The study aims to analyze the practices that are being experimented in this period in order to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. We speak of tactics aimed at building networks of urban solidarity, guaranteeing subsistence services to citizens and promoting practices of mutualism and collaboration aimed at codifying new forms of social capital. Through solidarity networks examples, the research highlights how forms of active territoriality can contribute to the resilience of the urban system in times of crisis.