AI Supporting a Climate-Neutral Urban Planning

Climate Change (CC) and Urban Heat Island (UHI) are physical evidence of the pressing anthropogenic presence on the planet Earth. Such phenomena are increasingly pushing the mankind towards the planetary boundaries, or outside of a safe operational space for humanity. Climate neutrality is a must for the present and cannot even be sufficient. Adaptation is required for maintaining acceptable standards of living. Cities are the places where mitigation and adaptation meet: the places in which we live and work; the places that are responsible of more than the 70% of the greenhouse gases emissions (directly or indirectly); and the places where impacts are expected to be higher. For all that reasons, urban and environmental planning must actualize fast, to respond easily to the new challenges of the Anthropocene Epoch. In this paper, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is used to improve the integration of building simulation processes and strategic planning of green infrastructure (GI) and other Nature Based Solutions (NBS).