TUTORIAL

Beniamino Murgante

Department of Engineering
University of Basilicata

Climate change, environmental degradation, and rapid urbanization are among the most pressing challenges facing contemporary societies. Cities play a crucial role in this context, as they concentrate population, economic activities, infrastructure, energy consumption, and greenhouse gas emissions, while simultaneously being highly vulnerable to environmental risks such as heat waves, flooding, pollution, and resource scarcity. Consequently, urban areas have become strategic arenas for achieving sustainable development, climate adaptation, and social resilience. The growing importance of concepts such as livability, accessibility, ecosystem services, walkability, and sustainable mobility reflects the need to rethink urban and territorial systems in ways that balance environmental protection, economic development, and social inclusion.
The presentation investigates the relationships between urban transformation, sustainability, accessibility, ecosystem services, and spatial planning through interdisciplinary and computational approaches. The central objective is to develop analytical and methodological frameworks capable of supporting more sustainable, resilient, and inclusive territorial development in response to contemporary global challenges such as climate change, rapid urbanization, environmental degradation, and post-pandemic urban renewal.

Beniamino Murgante is Professor of Spatial Planning at the Department of Engineering of the University of Basilicata, where he also serves as Director of the Laboratory of Urban and Territorial Systems and Coordinator of the undergraduate and postgraduate Civil and Environmental Engineering programs.
He obtained his Ph.D. in “Sciences and Methods for European Cities and Territory” at the University of Pisa, and subsequently conducted research activities in Lyon at the Laboratory for Information System Engineering directed by Robert Laurini.
Professor Murgante is a member of the editorial boards of several international journals, participates in the scientific committees of numerous national and international conferences, and is part of the scientific councils of various academic organizations. He is Editor-in-Chief, of the journal Current Urban Studies, Scientific Research Publishing Editor of the journal Sustainable Communities (Taylor & Francis) and Co-Program Committee Chair of the International Conference on Computational Science and Its Applications (ICCSA).