Planning to Integrate Urban and Ecological Processes: A Case Involving Fluvial Functionality

The sustainability paradigm still puts planners before the old problem of the relationship between cities and natural ecosystems. However, while in the past an attempt was made to give a form to the city in a world still dominated by the countryside, today we are attempting to give form to the territory in a world dominated by the city. In terms of sustainable development, the fact that the built environment coincides with a vast territory calls for a wholly new approach to planning practices vis-à-vis the natural environment. The purpose of this new approach should not so much that of simple guaranteeing green areas or pleasant landscapes for the urban population, but to guarantee a real dialogue between urban and natural processes. This calls for the following: - A much greater flexibility on the part of planners, who should address settlement process in order to preserve ecosystems functionality, so that equal status be attributed to urban and natural processes. - Effective co-operation between planners and other professional figures, especially ecologists, to avoid that the ways of integrating urban and natural processes once again revert to the form to be given the territory. An application of this approach is presented, with reference to a valley located in Trentino region.