ISUT model. A composite index to measure the sustainability of the urban transformation

Abstract

The urban transformation is the result of several decisions made in a variety of temporal and spatial scales, which concern the field of urban planning regarding the location of buildings and activities, position of transport networks, that in fact are more persistent (Morris 1994). The urban transformation generates environmental impacts in terms of soil sealing, energy consumption and urban heat island (Ewing and Rong 2008), which result in consequences on stormwater runoff, on raising the temperature and increasing of CO2 emissions. From a representation of the state of the art, the present paper defines a composite index called ISUT (index of sustainability of the urban intervention). The ISUT covers all the essential components of the urban design that condition the energy balance equation (Parham and Fariborz 2010). The composite index value is used to propose better strategies to guide the development of local area plans in conjunction with the City’s Plan using an easy data-set which derives from the knowledge of the territory, which is usually already acquired for urban planning tools on a municipal basis.