Abstract
Climate change is increasingly exerting pressure with intensified impacts in the short-, medium-, and long-term. Cities are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, and it is recognized that they play a significant role in the European Strategy on adaptation to climate change. This study intends to develop a climate adaptation framework to identify effective measures that will be evaluated using a multi-urban area located in the north of Portugal, as a case study. The climate adaptation framework was developed following the Urban Adaptation Support Tool (AST), adapted to the Portuguese reality. The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model was used to provide future projections with a high level of spatial resolution over the study area, increasing the accuracy of the identification of future climatic vulnerabilities. The results show a tendency for an increase of extreme weather events associated with the increase of both temperature and annual accumulated precipitation variables. A set of both urban and rural measures to promote a sustainable development path to climate adaptability and increase cities resilience to climate change are presented and discussed.
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Acknowledgements
This work was partially supported by “Associação de Municípios da Terra Fria do Nordeste Transmontano” and “Associação de Municípios da Terra Quente Transmontana” through projects “Plano Intermunicipal De Adaptação Às Alterações Climáticas Da Terra Fria Do Nordeste Transmontano” and “Plano Intermunicipal De Adaptação Às Alterações Climáticas Da Terra Quente Transmontana,” respectively. The authors would like to thank “Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovação—SPI” for the access of the information used in this work. Thanks is also due, for the financial support to CESAM (UIDB/50017/2020+UIDP/50017/2020) and the PhD grant of S.C. (SFRH/BD/137999/2018), to FCT/MEC through national funds, and the co-funding by the FEDER, within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement and Compete 2020.
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Coelho, S., Rafael, S., Coutinho, M. et al. Climate-Change Adaptation Framework for Multiple Urban Areas in Northern Portugal. Environmental Management 66, 395–406 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-020-01313-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-020-01313-5