Urban areas are suffering increasing vulnerability to flooding due to the lack of an organic, systemic framework to mitigate risks connected to these events. Indeed, prevention and management of such hazards have always been carried out with defensive actions aimed at realizing a technology-based control over natural dynamics through traditional engineering solutions, disregarding the essential role of other connected disciplines. The necessity to go beyond this approach has been recognized only in recent years since urban flood risk mitigation is a complex issue that involves different actors and several interrelated intervention scales, from catchment scale down to building scale. The development of a cross-scale interdisciplinary approach is needed especially in Mediterranean compact cities, which are an important part of the European urban heritage. This research aims at improving flood resilience of these specific contexts integrating architectural, hydro-geology and hydrology professionals in order to find proper site-specific solutions. To reach this aim, a scientific procedure to analyze all the features of the Mediterranean compact city that contribute to urban behavior during flood and assess their interactions will be carried on. For this reason soil identification, flooding risks mapping, definition of morphological and constructions indicators and buildings' and outdoor urban areas' characterization will be undertaken. Finally, the overall effectiveness of the considered flood risk mitigation strategies will be assessed for selected case studies by means of specifically developed U-SAFE indicators that will take into account also the side-benefits (buildings' energy demand reduction and thermal comfort increase) of the proposed solutions. Outcomes will be a summary of guidelines to support designers and municipalities actions to make cities more resilient, contributing to the advancement of the state-of-the art in this field.
