Participatory Mapping to Improve Urban Resilience Starting from the Experiences in the Scientific Literature and Virtuous Cases

Participatory mapping plays a key role in increasingly embedding citizen participation in urban planning decision-making processes in our complex cities. There are several experiences suggesting how participatory mapping reduces vulnerability, strengthens resilience, and encourages local adaptive capacities. However, there’s a certain pluralism in the design and implementation of participatory mapping processes at the level of variables and actors to be mapped, technology to be used and place concerned, such as to compromise the effectiveness of interventions on the territory. First, this paper takes up the challenge posed by the fragmented nature of existing practices and provides an updated literature review on collaborative land use planning and design that has employed participatory mapping methods in the field of disaster risk management and promotion of urban resilience. All the different contributions included in the review are examined through specific indicators: mapping tools and techniques, innovative contribution and actors involved; the strengths and weaknesses that emerged are also reported. Starting from the analysis of the competent literature and its virtuous cases, the contribution proposes a multiphase methodological approach which, by integrating participatory mapping and Geodesign workshop, aims to promote urban resilience to climate change. This preliminary research lays the foundation for the further development of a spatial decision support system in which participatory mapping (as listen to the local actors first) integrates co-design workshops (co-creation of ideas then) and technical and policy interventions-assessments, in order to improve urban resilience to climate change at the municipal level.