Cities are the established primary human habitats and are projected to increase in both population density and surface extension. The process of continuous urbanization is one of the characteristics of Anthropocene, a geological epoch defined by the impact of human activities in influencing Earth’s geology and ecosystems, leading to widespread environmental changes and challenges. Unsustainable urban growth, climate change-induced impacts, and mismanaged urban planning expose cities to increased threats to the liveability conditions of urban habitats, such as increased health risks and reduced living comfort. Although cities are primarily human habitats, the negative effects of Anthropocene influence both human and non-human urban inhabitants. The same negative effects are reflected on the conditions of the built and natural environment that compose urban and peri-urban landscapes, having influenced the cultural identity of cities and driven the development of both ecological conservation practices and urban planning. Thus, cities must deal with the transformation or conservation of the built and natural environment, balancing the needs of liveability of urban inhabitants. In practice, contemporary administrations still face numerous challenges while translating multi-disciplinary directives into effective long-term, locally effective, planning strategies and ecological practices. This includes the difficulty of integrating ecological knowledge, climate adaptation requirements, and socio‑economic constraints into coherent planning frameworks. New tools and methodologies that account for the holistic structure of cities and its multiple inhabitants would enable planners and researchers to rethink the implementation and effectiveness of urban planning and ecological practices in light of novel perspectives. This thesis confronts two of the most influential contemporary threats to urban liveability that influence the built and natural environment, namely the loss of biodiversity and increased urban heat. The thesis presents two different novel methodologies, one for each thematic, that enable the description and comparison of urban landscapes conditions. The goal is to support the implementation and definition of urban planning and ecological practices, by building the methodological and technical backgrounds to develop interactive tools and dashboards or fostering cooperation between researchers and practitioners and facilitate evidence based decision making. The outcome of the first methodology is called Cohabscapes (from Co-Habitative landScapes) and consists in a classification of urban landscapes for determining liveability conditions of human and non-human inhabitants, such as plants and animals. This classification is based on geospatial and remote sensing data, and through unsupervised machine learning produces a set of raster layers that gives information on urban form, anthropic imprint, and biophysical conditions. A first version of the methodology was applied on three case studies, i.e. Vienna, Munich, and Genoa, within the FET H2020 project ECOLOPES. An application with 30 bird species open data showcases the usage of Cohabscapes in retrieving useful patterns for ecological research and biodiversity-informed urban planning. Then, the roadmap to extending Cohabscapes for major European cities is presented, bringing cities comparison at the continental scale. This tool will support the exchange of spatial knowledge and ecological insights within and between cities, providing planners, architects, and ecologists with a shared analytical basis to design and evaluate green urbanism strategies and biodiversity-sensitive interventions, such as Nature-Based Solutions. The second methodology consists of a site-selection criterion to estimate the most suitable urban areas for introducing mitigation strategies against urban heat islands. This methodology uses opensource satellite, geospatial, and census data, through a combination of morphometric spatial analysis and multicriteria ranking to obtain its results. The methodology was developed within the PRIN project URBAN GENERATION and applied to the case studies of Genoa and Turin. An application of this methodology is presented, by using the site characterization data to generalize the design of green mitigation strategies, such as Nature-Based Solutions, with machine learning techniques. To enable the application, a conversion model is developed to downscale urban data at the building scale, transforming the study into a multiscale problem. This application highlights an effective way to deal with multiscalarity in urban planning, supporting the implementation of known strategies as effective countermeasure to urban heat. The thesis is conducted in support with the Chair of Terrestrial Ecology, Technical University of Munich, Germany; Laboratoire BioadivAG, University of Angèrs, France; CIMA Foundations, Savona, Italy; contributing in the FET H2020 project ECOLOPES (ECOLOgical building enveloPES; https://ecolopes.org/) and PNRR-PRIN project URBAN GENERATION (https://ecosystemics.eu/research/projects/urban-generation/). In the long term, the results of this thesis are intended to support the development of integrated planning frameworks, inform policy-making, and guide the design of adaptive, biodiversity-supportive, and climate-resilient urban environments. The methodologies provide replicable, scalable, and transparent approaches that can be expanded, updated, and integrated into future research, digital platforms, and decision-support systems.
Spatial analytics for urban liveability. Applied methodologies for urban planning and ecological practices
ONETO, GABRIELE
2026-05-27
Abstract
Cities are the established primary human habitats and are projected to increase in both population density and surface extension. The process of continuous urbanization is one of the characteristics of Anthropocene, a geological epoch defined by the impact of human activities in influencing Earth’s geology and ecosystems, leading to widespread environmental changes and challenges. Unsustainable urban growth, climate change-induced impacts, and mismanaged urban planning expose cities to increased threats to the liveability conditions of urban habitats, such as increased health risks and reduced living comfort. Although cities are primarily human habitats, the negative effects of Anthropocene influence both human and non-human urban inhabitants. The same negative effects are reflected on the conditions of the built and natural environment that compose urban and peri-urban landscapes, having influenced the cultural identity of cities and driven the development of both ecological conservation practices and urban planning. Thus, cities must deal with the transformation or conservation of the built and natural environment, balancing the needs of liveability of urban inhabitants. In practice, contemporary administrations still face numerous challenges while translating multi-disciplinary directives into effective long-term, locally effective, planning strategies and ecological practices. This includes the difficulty of integrating ecological knowledge, climate adaptation requirements, and socio‑economic constraints into coherent planning frameworks. New tools and methodologies that account for the holistic structure of cities and its multiple inhabitants would enable planners and researchers to rethink the implementation and effectiveness of urban planning and ecological practices in light of novel perspectives. This thesis confronts two of the most influential contemporary threats to urban liveability that influence the built and natural environment, namely the loss of biodiversity and increased urban heat. The thesis presents two different novel methodologies, one for each thematic, that enable the description and comparison of urban landscapes conditions. The goal is to support the implementation and definition of urban planning and ecological practices, by building the methodological and technical backgrounds to develop interactive tools and dashboards or fostering cooperation between researchers and practitioners and facilitate evidence based decision making. The outcome of the first methodology is called Cohabscapes (from Co-Habitative landScapes) and consists in a classification of urban landscapes for determining liveability conditions of human and non-human inhabitants, such as plants and animals. This classification is based on geospatial and remote sensing data, and through unsupervised machine learning produces a set of raster layers that gives information on urban form, anthropic imprint, and biophysical conditions. A first version of the methodology was applied on three case studies, i.e. Vienna, Munich, and Genoa, within the FET H2020 project ECOLOPES. An application with 30 bird species open data showcases the usage of Cohabscapes in retrieving useful patterns for ecological research and biodiversity-informed urban planning. Then, the roadmap to extending Cohabscapes for major European cities is presented, bringing cities comparison at the continental scale. This tool will support the exchange of spatial knowledge and ecological insights within and between cities, providing planners, architects, and ecologists with a shared analytical basis to design and evaluate green urbanism strategies and biodiversity-sensitive interventions, such as Nature-Based Solutions. The second methodology consists of a site-selection criterion to estimate the most suitable urban areas for introducing mitigation strategies against urban heat islands. This methodology uses opensource satellite, geospatial, and census data, through a combination of morphometric spatial analysis and multicriteria ranking to obtain its results. The methodology was developed within the PRIN project URBAN GENERATION and applied to the case studies of Genoa and Turin. An application of this methodology is presented, by using the site characterization data to generalize the design of green mitigation strategies, such as Nature-Based Solutions, with machine learning techniques. To enable the application, a conversion model is developed to downscale urban data at the building scale, transforming the study into a multiscale problem. This application highlights an effective way to deal with multiscalarity in urban planning, supporting the implementation of known strategies as effective countermeasure to urban heat. The thesis is conducted in support with the Chair of Terrestrial Ecology, Technical University of Munich, Germany; Laboratoire BioadivAG, University of Angèrs, France; CIMA Foundations, Savona, Italy; contributing in the FET H2020 project ECOLOPES (ECOLOgical building enveloPES; https://ecolopes.org/) and PNRR-PRIN project URBAN GENERATION (https://ecosystemics.eu/research/projects/urban-generation/). In the long term, the results of this thesis are intended to support the development of integrated planning frameworks, inform policy-making, and guide the design of adaptive, biodiversity-supportive, and climate-resilient urban environments. The methodologies provide replicable, scalable, and transparent approaches that can be expanded, updated, and integrated into future research, digital platforms, and decision-support systems.
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