Towards climate adaptation: a case study of a Coastal City in Portugal

ABSTRACT: The present study focuses on the use of complementary numerical tools to support the development of a climate neutrality roadmap for Cascais, a coastal Portuguese city and one of the nine pilot cities in the Re-Value project. The results contribute to refining the roadmap and updating Cascais' long-term Territorial Transformation Plans to accelerate its journey to climate neutrality by 2050. For this, a spatial analysis was conducted to assess the potential for rooftop solar PV, onshore wind energy, and wave energy along the coastline. Additionally, an innovative and simplified Decision Support Tool (DST) was developed to support municipalities in the development of their climate neutrality roadmaps and was used in the design of the scenarios and trajectories, which are now being integrated into the climate neutrality roadmap for Cascais. The DST tool results show that in the High Development scenario, when compared with the reference year of 2019, the total final energy demand can decrease by 7.2 % in 2050 due to the implementation of energy efficiency measures following the concept "Energy Efficiency First" and along with the increase of electrification, the introduction of hydrogen in the transport sector, and a broader implementation of renewable energy in the urban fabric and public spaces, Green House Gas (GHG) emissions can decrease by 82 % in 2050.

Keywords

Climate neutrality Renewable energies Urban revaluing Coastal cities Climate adaptation Portugal

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.9/6030

Citation

Aelenei, L., Viana, S., Simoes, T., Amorim, F., Simoes, S. G., Barbosa, J., Justino, P., Goncalves, H., Dinis, J. & Fernandes, G. (2025). Towards climate adaptation: a case study of a Coastal City in Portugal, In: Building and Environment, 2025, vol.283, article 113366. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2025.113366