Spatial Planning and Climate Change Adaptation in Mainland Portugal

The text analyses the relations between spatial planning and climate change adaptation in Mainland Portugal. Chapter one provides an extensive analysis of Portuguese spatial planning as an institutional technology, based on the analytical framework proposed in the article “Planning Systems as Institutional Technologies: a Proposed Conceptualization and the Implications for Comparison” (Umberto Janin Rivolin, 2012). Accordingly, Portuguese spatial planning is described in terms of structure, tools, discourse and practice. In the last decade the authority of spatial planning has been largely compromised by the pre-eminence of some sectorial policies. The rise of climate change adaptation policies has contradicted this trend promoting the development of spatial plans to implement the National Strategy for Adaptation. In no more than a decade, spatial adaptation plans have spread throughout the national territory, first on municipal basis, then at the NUTS III scale. Since 2017, a second generation of municipal plans for adaptation has raised considerably the national average quality of spatial tools, namely in terms of scientific and cartographic bases, monitorisation and evaluation processes, and multi-sectorial compatibility. Climate change adaptation in Portugal has been strongly supported by the European communitarian climate policies. Specifically, the European Strategy on Climate Change Adaption (2013) has provided a framework for the action of all Member States and cities, while the following Multiannual Financial Framework of the EU (2014-2020) has furnished large funding resources for climate change adaptation in Europe. Chapter two contains a description of European policies for adaptation, preceded by a conceptual definition of climate change adaptation. Chapter three reports the main facts concerning the development of spatial planning for climate change adaptation in Mainland Portugal. It includes an assessment of all the tools currently in force, of municipal and intermunicipal scale. Municipal plans are the most significant tools until now, resulting more numerous, more structured, and more advanced. Their assessment has been conducted through a contextual adaptation of the Adaptation Policy Credibility (APC) framework presented in the article “Are local climate adaptation policies credible? A conceptual and operational assessment framework” (Marta Olazabal et al.,2019). The framework applied allows for a comprehensive evaluation of the local adaptation plans adopted in Mainland Portugal, in their general characteristics and main types. Metropolitan and intermunicipal plans for adaptation were introduced more recently in Portugal, only half of them are already in force, and their heterogeneity allows for only a qualitative assessment. In any case, their introduction represents a potential break-through for both spatial planning and adaptation policies in Portugal. In particular, the Metropolitan Plan for Climate Change Adaptation in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (PMAAC-AML, 2020) represents the state of the art of climate change adaptation in Portugal. Chapter four reports the main features of the PMAAC-AML, focusing on methodology, governance model and integration of adaptation in spatial planning. Finally, Chapter 5 discusses the relations between climate change adaptation and spatial planning policies developed until now in Mainland Portugal.