Cities of the future and climate change: José Carlos Ferreira in an interview with Sábado

To mark World Cities Day, researcher José Carlos Ferreira was interviewed by Sábado magazine to discuss the preparation of Portuguese cities for the challenges posed by climate change. 

Almost a month has passed since the tragedy that struck Valencia, and yet news of the disaster continues to hit the Portuguese media every day. The question remains: ‘Is Portugal prepared for a similar situation?’

A large part of the Portuguese population lives in the Lisbon metropolitan area, where almost every municipality has contact with the coastline. The north of the Porto metropolitan area and the Algarve are also at risk. In short, more than 80% of Portuguese live by the coast, making them vulnerable to climate disasters such as the one that occurred in the neighbouring country.

This makes the need to adapt to this type of phenomenon increasingly urgent. As MARE researcher José Carlos Ferreira warns, ‘We're going to have an increase in temperature, more excessive heat, more tropical nights’ and ‘Rainfall is going to be less, but more intense and concentrated over time’. 

 This means that Portugal will be required to better prepare and organise its territory to meet the new needs. ‘Our cities in the future will have to be sponge cities, territories that can absorb the impacts of heavy rainfall and flooding, both coastal and estuarine,’ explains the MARE researcher.

For the MARE researcher, the solution lies in green infrastructure, which will help to waterproof cities during rainfall and retain water and shade during periods of high heat. ‘We need to introduce greenery into the city, green roofs, our gardens, our backyards, tree-lined terraces, pavements with bike lanes and tree-lined bike lanes, areas inside buildings that are tree-lined and permeable,’ he explains.

Another solution is an intelligent sustainable drainage system, which involves biovallets: these are ‘small micro-forests, gardens, vegetable gardens, insect pollination areas’ that allow water to be retained, as is the case with the Várzea da Ribeira do Livramento in Setúbal.

José Calos Ferreira concludes by warning that preparing cities is ‘urgent’, as ‘our planning process is very rigid and incompatible with today’, and is more ‘reactive’ than ‘preventative’.

‘For us to have solutions in 20 years‘ time, we have to act today’, because as our researcher often says ‘the next storm is just around the corner’.

To read the interview click HERE

Photos by NOVA FCT