Hydro-morphological analysis for sustainable planning: the case study of Matera, Italy.

Sustainable planning is a complex process in which the urban transformation, affecting land use, determine significant changes on the morphological shape of the urban spaces that influence the quality of life of citizens, the efficiency of the infrastructure, the usability of the spaces and structure/buildings and the value of the esthetic aspects of the architectural works to be created (Kalfas et al., 2023; Romero-Lankao et al., 2018). The urban transformations also modify the physical parameters (shape, size, slope, permeability) related to the dynamics of response to climate change and control the processes of surface runoff development (Cappadonia et al., 2016, Li et al., 2018). Consequently, in case of urban transformations that are not well calibrated, the risk of urban flooding (Feng et al., 2021) become more frequent and influence the operability of urban areas (Yang et al., 2021). Sustainable and resilient planning policies (robust, flexible and capable of adapting to unexpected events), become keys requirement to be achieved through an integrated interpretation of the different components (Leigh et al., 2019). The proposed methodology interprets the morphology of the territory in order to balance the complicated interactions between natural precipitation events and the urban areas layout. The hydromorphic approach interprets the urban territory through its hydrological shape, defined by independent basins into which take place the surface runoff processes. (Cunha et al., 2017; Ermini et al., 2022). Through the assessment of surface runoffs, the basins approach allows to analyse the efficiency of the urban layout of the city of Matera, evaluating the risk of urban flooding and suggesting sustainable, resilient and strategic planning of the city.