DOTTORATO NAZIONALE IN HERITAGE SCIENCE

Titolo della tesi: A Climate-sensitive Methodology for the Sustainable Protection of Historic Villages in a Changing Climate. An Exploratory Application to Osidda (Sardinia, Italy)

This thesis addresses the growing pressures on the historic fabric and cultural heritage of small inland villages in Sardinia, a wide and structurally significant component of the regional settlement system, where longterm demographic decline has reduced everyday use, care, and routine maintenance, while climate change is increasing thermal stress and related environmental risks. These settlements remain identity-rich environments that support community cohesion and local knowledge, yet they are often protected through aesthetic approaches that rarely translate into operational tools capable of guiding adaptation to emerging environmental stresses. The research responds to this gap between conservation-driven protection and climate-driven transformation by developing and testing a climate-sensitive conservation protocol at the scale of the whole settlement, with particular attention to outdoor thermal comfort. The study adapts the Urban Microclimate Design (UMD) approach, originally developed for new urban development, to the assessment and design of interventions in existing historic villages in the Mediterranean climatic zone. The protocol integrates architectural and landscape analysis, GIS-based spatial diagnostics, and ENVI-met microclimatic simulations to identify site-specific mitigation strategies that are compatible with heritage values, materials, and spatial logic. The method is applied to Osidda (north-eastern Sardinia), a compact hilltop village that provides a representative test-bed due to its morphology, landscape setting, and demographic contraction. The thesis delivers a replicable methodological workflow and a set of strategies supported by analysis and results, climate-oriented and compatible with conservation translating microclimatic evidence into guidance that can support municipal planning and local design processes in small historic settlements. While calibrated for Mediterranean conditions and the specific parameters of Osidda, the workflow is designed to be transferable provided that local climate data and settlement characteristics are re-specified. Beyond the single-building scale, the village is interpreted as a complex urban organism in which microclimate, cultural significance, everyday practices, and territorial dynamics must be addressed together.