KNOWING Kickoff Workshop Naples

Objectives of the meeting

The Kick-off meeting for the Napoli Regional Hub combined the aim of presenting the project KNOWING, its aims and potentialities to stakeholders from the public sector, testing some of the engagement methods envisioned in the project to maximize the participants’ involvement.

The meeting was organized in three parts: introduction, interaction, and discussion.

Methodology

The meeting was organized as an informative and educative participative process. Each step was dedicated to increase  participants’ awareness and let them familiarize  with the CC lexicon and the KNOWING approach. 

The second part (interaction) was specifically dedicated to setting up an initial spatialized database using a large map of the coast of Naples, scale 1:7000 (3,4x1,6 mt). 

Considering that the  participants were from different sectors and administrative levels, the meeting constituted a first step to increasing mutual understanding and sharing sectoral  information.

Invited stakeholders

• Regione Campania - UOD Energia, efficientamento e risparmio energetico, Green Economy e Bioeconomia Regione Campania
• Regione Campania - UOD Valutazioni Ambientali Regione Campania
• Regione Campania - UOD Sviluppo Sostenibile, Acustica, qualità dell’aria e radiazioni
• Autorità del Sistema Portuale del Mar Tirreno Centrale 
• ARPAC - Agenzia Regionale per la Protezione dell'Ambiente
• Consorzio di bonifica delle paludi di Napoli e Volla
• Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn Napoli 
• Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio per il Comune di Napoli
• Legambiente Campania APS
• Lega Navale Italiana Napoli 

Part A - introduction

After welcoming the participants, Prof. Zuccaro (PLINIVS) introduced the Plinivs Study Center expertise and the KNOWING project. The vice-mayor of the Municipality of Naples intervened online to welcome the participants and to present the current activities and priorities of the local government connected to CC. Prof. Leone (PLINIVS) focused on presenting the Napoli Climate context and background project conducted at Plinivs. 

Prof. Leone explained that the Napoli Climate context as a case study is representative of the KNOWING category “Flooding & infrastructure”, focusing on coastal flooding. It was clarified that the project’s goal is to go beyond a sectoral approach to CC mitigation and adaptation strategies. The second part of the WS was introduced as the opportunity to start sharing knowledge between different departments and authorities. 

Part B - interaction

Two activities were conducted during the interaction step: co-mapping and identification of priorities. 

The co-mapping activity was conducted in parallel by PLINIVS researchers (facilitators) with each participant, aimed at collecting participants’ inputs from their institutional perspective. Using stickers and alphanumeric codes, information about participants’ initiatives, projects, and programs were translated in short written sentences by facilitators. 

Most notably, two types of inputs were added to the list of ongoing institutional activities. First, technical participants (i.e., Anton Dohrn Zoological Station Naples) mentioned CC impacts on specific ecosystems. Second, obdured problems (i.e., practices and behaviors) connected to small-scale agriculture activities, the small-scale food sector, and homeowners were mentioned.

The second activity was conducted in a group. It consisted in populating a database of “priorities” suggested by the participants and organizing them  into four categories (mitigation, adaptation, environmental co-benefits and socio-economic co-benefits). Part of the information was derived from the previous interaction of the co-mapping, and new elements were added during the participation generated by this activity .

Part C - discussion

The discussion step lasted about 60 minutes (meeting ended at 6.30 pm). Most notably, in this part of the workshop, impacts on humans and impacts on ecosystems were both discussed, and they did not increase the level of conflict between actors. 

Results

The level of involvement was high, and all the participants were actively involved in the three parts of the WS. The collected information proved to be very useful to design the next KNOWING activities, as it contained specific and accurate elements about obdured problems, innovative monitoring systems and tools, and sectoral priorities that might trigger intersectoral approaches to design CC mitigation strategies.

In particular, inputs from the discussion deserves further exploration. On a side note, the level of conflict in discussing human and ecosystem priorities is interestingly low between them.

Next steps

• Transfer data to a digital form, and design the structure for coding and data analysis. 
• Follow up with stakeholders.
• Reach out to key stakeholders that did not participate in the meeting.