Smart city and alluvial park: the role of the urban green in the water management through historical and natural values

This paper analyses the possibility of managing the effects on water in urban centers. The water management is an important issue related to the smart cities, because of the climate changes. This problem is felt especially in urban settlements close to river areas, where there are also protected natural elements. Here the effects of climate change are stronger, particularly in the case of rains occurring with less frequency, but with much more intensity. This leads to a rapid rise in the river level that invades and disrupts the urban areas. The famous cases, such as Venice, are surrounded by minor cases, but not less interesting, especially in virtue of their innovative power in the field of urban design experimentation. The text identifies the potential of the alluvial park as an element to manage the flooding risk and to make the urban environment a smart city, presenting an application case in the town of Monterotondo Scalo, in the province of Rome in Italy. The alluvial park is a green area that combines the geomorphological characteristics of the territory with those of the landscape perception by local people: it is a public space that restores the landscape in its naturalness, in such a way as to reintegrate it into an urban discourse to front of the climate change effects. In the case of Monterotondo Scalo, located along the Tiber River, the alluvial park is perfectly in line with the characteristics of the place. Between the riverbed and the city center there is a thin strip devoted to agricultural uses, broken by the presence of a protected natural area, consisting of ex-clay quarries transformed into ponds. The alluvial park has been thought as an opportunity to reconfigure the green space so that it can be accessed and accessible. In this way, it could also become a natural expansion of the riverbed for its re-naturalized configuration. The proposal of the text is not an already realized project, but it is an investigation and a design experimentation that tries to give an answer to the requests of how to make a smart city. The fundamental aspect is that of the management of climate change inside the city: we do not want to provide a perfect solution, but a way of acting in situations that present emergencies in the urban environment and require project-type measures.