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.