http://www.ierek.com/press Print ISSN: 2357-0849 International Journal on: Proceedings of Science and Technolgy pg. 1 Decision making in Integrated Environmental Management of Functional Urban Areas: tools and methods applied within a European cooperation programme Elena Masala, Matteo Tabasso 1 1 SiTI – Istituto Superiore sui Sistemi Territoriali per l’Innovazione, Torino Keywords land use; ecosystem services; data mapping; Functional Urban Area; Integrated Environmental Management; Abstract Within the ongoing LUMAT cooperation project (https://www.interreg- central.eu/Content.Node/LUMAT.html), financed by the Interreg Central Europe programme, including 7 countries, the Italian pilot area involves 22 municipalities of the Metropolitan City of Turin working together in order to define a management structure of Homogeneous Zone n.11 (HZ #11) of Turin Functional Urban Area (FUA). Through a series of workshops, the municipalities were involved and trained for building a shared Functional Urban Area identity, evaluating their Ecosystem Services, managing their land use conflicts and involving citizens in all spatial decision-making processes. This cooperation brought, in each participating country, to the construction of an Action Plan for the definition of the Integrated Environmental Management Strategies for the Functional Urban Areas. In this context, the Italian FUA agreed on the use of a tool for facilitating the decision-making processes in a complex environment such as the inter-municipal agglomeration. Thus, the representatives of the municipalities were supported in the definition of a common and shared data platform through the use of the Interactive Visualisation Tool (InViTo), a web based mapping tool developed by SiTI. Through the visualization of tematic maps, municipalities can discover how the territory can develop territorial resilience to specific large scale projects, thus providing important information to decision and policy makers before the approval of design or funding. The paper discusses the method built for the project development, from the involvement of Public Administrations to the implementation of the strategy described in the Action Plan. 1. Introduction Urban systems are scientifically demonstrated to be a main actor in the global climate change (UN-HABITAT, 2011; Hsu et al., 2018a, 2018b). Energy consumption, land use, waste of water, air, noise and light pollution are just some of the effects generated by human activities. As urban population is constantly increasing, the urgency of a new approach in the organization and functional dynamics of urban agglomerations is evident (Bansard, Pattberg & Widerberg, 2017; Estrada, Wouter Botzen & Tol 2017; Melis, Masala & Tabasso, 2015;    & Theys, 2014).