Making Lisbon greener and cooler

That is the aim of the Life Lungs project

Earlier today, a training session aimed at municipalities, owners and private managers of green areas took place online with the purpose of promoting climate adaptation on the territory of Lisbon. The videoconference was organized by the Metropolitan Area of Lisbon and included the first metropolitan secretary, Carlos Humberto de Carvalho, the manager of the Life Lungs project, Inês Freire, and several representatives of the City Council, which is the entity that leads the project, in partnership with the Spanish municipality of Málaga.

Workshop on the variety of methodologies for urban climate adaptation

Projections of increasing temperature and decreasing average annual rainfall over this century make it urgent to adapt cities to climate change.

The LIFE LUNGS project (an acronym from ‘Towards a more resilient Lisbon UrbaN Green InfraStructure as an adaptation to climate change’) seeks to contribute to making the city more resilient to rising temperatures and mitigating the effects of heatwaves and water scarcity which are expected to be more frequent in the near future. The project takes place between September 2019 and August 2024 is in line with the climate policies adopted by the municipality. 

Through this project, the aim is also to achieve an urban green network capable of developing the associated ecosystem services and their sustainable management. Additionally, there are goals to increase the shadow areas of the city, the development of areas of zero waste of rainwater and the adoption of behaviours and adapting urban green infrastructure to the climate change projected for this century.

The areas covered for funding under the Life Lungs project are the following: installation and maintenance of biodiverse rainfed meadows, management of retention basins and consumption monitoring systems, application of vegetation control methods: mechanical and non-mechanical (meaning a flock of sheep), planting, pruning and watering trees, management of invasive alien species and use of native species in the urban green infrastructure.