Urban pollution, non-controlled urban growth, land occupation, and the arising of global pandemic scenarios as well as other threats related to climate change are drastically reducing livability in cities across the world in recent times. Urban infrastructure and services have been identified as key resources to increase community resilience against challenging environments by providing stability. This complex and variable urban context set the scene for new technologies and policies to be developed in order to improve urban infrastructure. With this aim, cleaner technologies and sustainable construction are needed to adjust the aforementioned stresses and unpredictable changes in the urban environment. In addition, multicriteria decision analysis tools are required to enhance urban planning and to reduce uncertainty. Green stormwater infrastructure plays an important role by linking sustainable water management to energy saving and food resilience, conferring robustness to human settlements and creating multifunctional spaces. Biodiversity has been pinpointed as another barrier against pandemic and climate change threats. So cleaner technologies associated with nature-based solutions are fundamental both in new urban spaces and in the built-environment through retrofitting.
In consequence, this Special Issue aims to contribute knowledge about this adverse and disruptive scenario in order to create resilient urban environments in a wide variety of aspects, including: Amenity and landscape design; Building Information Modeling; City Information Modelling; Green BIM; Environmental Impact Assessment; Life Cycle Assessment; Clean technologies; Economic impact; Ecosystem Services; Education; Energy saving; Geographic Information System; Green infrastructure; Monitoring and maintenance; New and emerging pollutants in the urban environment; Multicriteria decision analysis; Regulatory framework and barriers for implementation; Renewable Energies; Sponge cities; Stormwater reuse; Sustainable Construction; Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems; Sustainable water management; Urban Agriculture and Urban Forest; Urban infrastructure resiliency to variable climate; Urban retrofitting for sustainability.
Keywords: Biourbanism; Biodiversity; Climate resiliency; Flood risk mitigation; Ecosystem Services provision; Energy saving techniques; Green Infrastructure; Ground Source Heat Pumps; Low Impact Development; Urban Planning; Renewable Energy; Sponge Cities; Stormwater Best Management Practices; Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems; Urban Heat Island; Urban Retrofitting; Water Sensitive Urban Design.