Sensing the city: climate changes and advanced technologies

For several years ecological and environmental issues have become a priority in all global political agendas. The transformations due to climate change oblige us to rethink our development model, stimulating us to look for new solutions able to decrease its negative effects. In these fields, urban planning plays an important role equipping itself with innovative tools, technologies and methods, which can contribute to increasing its effectiveness. The paper aims to report the studies that the interdisciplinary research group has conducted in this direction, with particular reference to the new technologies applied to mitigate climate change. In the first part of the paper we will outline a picture of the current regulatory framework, focusing on the Italian situation. In the second part, we will describe the methods and tools used today to acquire data, in order to outline a state of the art that highlights their strengths and weaknesses. Finally, we will describe the main concept of "Precision Environmental Planning", a methodology borrowed from agricultural sciences to analyse the ecological conditions of small portions of the city.