Risk-Informed Planning for Inner Areas: A Multi-Risk Assessment Framework for the Metropolitan City of Bologna

Climate change is increasing the need for better integration of climate-risk assessment into territorial planning. In Italy, however, climate-related risk is still often addressed through separate, hazard-specific frameworks. This thesis develops and applies a transparent and replicable framework for integrating climate multi-risk assessment into territorial planning, using the Italian National Strategic Plan for Inner Areas (PSNAI) as an interpretive lens. The framework was applied to the 55 municipalities of the Metropolitan City of Bologna. Three climate-related hazards (floods, landslides, and heatwaves) were assessed through an indicator-based methodology considering hazard, exposure, and vulnerability, which were then combined into composite risk indices. The results show that climate multi-risk does not follow a simple center-periphery gradient. Flood and heatwave risk are more strongly associated with lowland metropolitan and peri-urban municipalities, whereas landslide risk is more pronounced in the Apennine area. Inner-area municipalities do not systematically record the highest overall multi-risk values, but they display a distinct profile characterized by higher vulnerability, especially greater sensitivity and weaker adaptive and planning capacity with increasing peripherality. In this respect, PSNAI proves particularly useful for interpreting vulnerability-related inequalities. The analytical results also guide the selection of planning solutions, while the PSNAI perspective helps orient their implementation according to different territorial conditions. Overall, the thesis argues that integrating climate multi-risk assessment into territorial planning, while accounting for territorial differences through the inner-areas perspective, can support more context-sensitive, equitable, and actionable responses to climate change.