Integrating Nature into the Sustainable Urban Design of Resilient, Regenerative, and Comfortable Cities through Physics and Thermodynamics. The ESCAPOS project.

The expansion of urban environments and the associated anthropogenic footprints contribute to climate change, biodiversity loss, and global warming. Intensification of green spaces and urban forestry are the only solutions to create "regenerative and living cities" capable of producing measurable benefits in terms of energy and environmental sustainability and well-being for people and nature. This our research, starting from ESCAPOS-LIFE project, quantifies and measures in situ the effects of green, blue, and hybrid infrastructure (parks, street trees, urban wetlands, and so on) and building-integrated vegetation (green roofs, green walls, and so on), finding effective solutions for rational energy use, combating climate change and biodiversity loss in urban environments, and providing local government with key strategies for developing regenerative and liveable cities. In particular, this study introduces a thermodynamics-informed entropy footprint method to quantify entropy exchanges in urban systems. The urban environment, conceptualized as an open thermodynamic system, is analysed with and without greenery applying the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics. A simple method is provided, linking applied thermodynamics to physics-informed modelling of urban built-up and green areas, high-resolution climate models at urban scale, greenery modelling, spatial georeferencing techniques. This allows the hyperlocal climate conditions and thermo-hygrometric well-being of citizens to improve, reducing entropy flux to the environment. Findings contributes to implement a strategic model for integrating green systems and Nature Based solutions (NBs) with a view to national decarbonization, reduced environmental impact, green economy and urban planning policies for sustainability and well-being.