As heatwaves intensify across Europe, cities need practical ways to reduce heat exposure in streets, squares, buildings and other public spaces. The urban heat island effect can make densely built-up areas significantly hotter than their surroundings, increasing risks to health and reducing the liveability of neighbourhoods.

This intervention manual supports the City of Rome in integrating heat adaptation into urban planning and regeneration. Developed within the project Tackling Urban Heat Islands in Rome, it provides a practical framework for selecting measures that can reduce surface and air temperatures, improve shading and ventilation, and create more climate-resilient public spaces.

A practical guide to urban cooling measures

The manual presents around 30 interventions tailored to Rome’s urban, environmental and socio-economic conditions. They are grouped into three categories:

• Nature-based solutions, including street trees, pocket parks, urban forests, green roofs, bioswales and green corridors; 
• Grey solutions, such as shading structures, reflective roofs, permeable pavements and water systems; 
• Enabling solutions, including climate shelters and awareness-raising measures. 

Each intervention is presented in a concise two-page factsheet. The factsheets describe how the measure works, where it can be applied and what governance arrangements may be needed. They also provide indicative information on installation and maintenance costs, heat-mitigation potential and wider benefits for biodiversity, stormwater management, social cohesion and human wellbeing.

The manual is intended as a decision-support tool for municipal departments. It encourages climate objectives to be considered from the outset of urban regeneration projects, rather than added after key planning and design decisions have already been taken. The measures can be applied individually or combined into wider strategies, such as networks of cool spaces and shaded corridors.

The publication forms part of the action plans prepared for the pilot areas of Centocelle–Alessandrino and Rome’s historic centre. It was produced for Roma Capitale through an EU-funded Technical Support Instrument project implemented by a consortium led by PwC, with ENEA and Ecologic Institute. Ecologic Institute contributed to the manual by researching and describing many of the nature-based and enabling solutions, including their heat-mitigation potential, governance requirements, costs, application areas and wider co-benefits.