SOS Climate Waterfront Internacional Conference

Wednesday, May 10, 11 and 12th, there will be place to the last conference of our Marie Curie RISE Research Project HORIZON 2020. The event will take place in Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian at 9:30.

The shrink of biodiversity, unprecedented climate swings and the rising costs of maintenance are symptoms of a planet struggling with Climate Change. To reestablish a healthy condition, cities seek to develop strategies of adaptation to make the built environment more resilient to face floods, droughts, high tides, tropical hurricanes and urban heat islands effect. Resilient urban environments are able to face the present challenges like sponges are able to absorb without degrading.

The concept of sponge implies porosity, urban waterscapes, sustainable strategy and cultural heritage. It requires a shift in the way cities have been designed in terms of dealing with Green infrastructure; planning with nature; regionalization, infrastructure; transportation; sustainable urban development and circular economy. Sponges take and give, they are passive and active and open a new realm of opportunities. Which urban strategies should be implemented? How solutions to adapt and mitigate will be able to enhance the resilience of cities?

Sustainable open solution on the waterfront facing climate change emerges from interdisciplinary and comparative cases to preserve the setting/world/locality. Recent research that proposes innovative resilience methodologies is also increasingly relevant.

Researchers will be working on the following three topics:

• Sustainable strategy and Cultural heritage
Concepts and projects relating to water landscapes and cultural heritage focusing impacts on contemporary uses; Natural and anthropomorphic transformation during the time and in the present; Influence on public space impact of tourism and economic factors, learning from the past; Re-signification of elements of value, new functions or conservation of heritage buildings along the water; Adaptive heritage based on the integration between landscape and cultural heritage.

• Urban waterscapes

Transformation based on interdisciplinary approaches, new solutions that emerge from the exchange of expertise integrating various fields of knowledge geographic, social, environmental. The role of communities along waterfronts, new approaches and emerging strategies. Cross visions between cities, exchange of best practices identified in the present. New landscapes facing risks of floods and high tides; Blue infrastructures and waterfront as a part of cultural sites.

• Porosity
Transition of the built environment, from hard edge to soft edge. Emergent trend of new urban and waterscapes that negotiate with nature. Systems of resilience to adapt and mitigate effects of climate change, such as environmental planning addressing new patterns brought by extreme swings in the waterfront facing climate change. Future strategies to mitigate the heat urban island effect and enhance sponge effect. Shifts to face the approach of modernity towards the dialogue with the existing landscape.