Climate change adaptation and urbanism: A developing agenda for Lisbon within the twenty-first century

Divided by interdisciplinary realms of application, both climate change and urbanism are ultimately bound together by cause-and-effect in our ever mutable cities. Although suggested that cities are changing faster than Mankind have been able to adjust out thinking, the yearly dissemination scientific data on climatic change is continually improving the efficiency of urbanism to tackle new looming paradigms. Respectively, it is considered that urbanism encounters its greatest opportunities in this uncertain ‘third modernity’, where flexible approaches such as ‘what if?’ scenarios allow urbanism to continuously uphold the ever evolving identity and continuum within eventful horizons. This collaboration between these two interrelating realms of contemporary practice is currently being applied upon the case of Lisbon, where regional and local climate change scenarios are assessed in terms of their potential territorial impacts. This originated the opportunity to evaluate how the city components and functioning within its waterfronts shall be affected by climate change. Resultantly, and embedded within its niche, urbanism presents a new creative laboratory where flexible and innovative urban adaptation strategies can be developed to counter-act the impending impacts upon Lisbon within the XXI century.