Achieving adaptation in medium-sized cities: the contribution of urban climate transition strategies in increasing soil permeability

Soil sealing and land take have produced negative impacts on urban areas, leading to adverse phenomena such as loss of ecosystem services, the urban heat island effect, and flooding. In this critical context, increasing soil permeability through desealing interventions is considered an effective solution against these problems. Over the past years, desealing has begun to be recognised in the scientific literature and in spatial planning practice to meet various needs. The approaches to desealing considered today are either top-down, as a result of political actions and choices by local and regional governments, or bottom-up, i.e. promoted by local associations. Within this complex framework, the aim of this contribution is to investigate and compare some specific innovative strategic urban planning instruments in medium-sized cities, specifically the Sustainable Energy and Climate Action Plans (SECAPs), which were examined focusing on how these tools have interpreted and proposed desealing interventions.