Climate change research and policy in Portugal

This article offers a review of research and policy on climate change in Portugal and is organized into three main themes: scientific knowledge and assessment of climate change; policy analysis and evaluation; and public engagement. Modern scientific research on meteorology and climatology started in Portugal in the 1950s and a strong community of researchers in climate science, vulnerabilities, impacts, and adaptation has since developed, particularly in the last decade. Nevertheless, there are still many gaps in research, especially regarding the economic costs of climate change in Portugal and costs and benefits of adaptation. Governmental policies with a strong emphasis on mitigation were introduced at the end of the 1990s. As greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise beyond its Kyoto target for 2012, the country had to resort to the Kyoto Flexibility Mechanisms in order to comply. Climate change adaptation policies were introduced in 2010 but are far from being fully implemented. Regarding public engagement with climate change, high levels of concern contrast with limited understanding and rather weak behavioral dispositions to address climate change. Citizens display a heavy reliance on the media as sources of information, which are dominated by a techno-managerial discourse mainly focused on the global level. The final part of the article identifies research gaps and outlines a research agenda. Connections between policy and research are also discussed

Assessment of the effectiveness of steel fibre reinforcement for the punching resistance of flat slabs by experimental research and design approach

The present paper deals with the experimental assessment of the effectiveness of steel fibre reinforcement in terms of punching resistance of centrically loaded flat slabs, and to the development of an analytical model capable of predicting the punching behaviour of this type of structures. For this purpose, eight slabs of 2550 x 2550 x 150 mm3 dimensions were tested up to failure, by investigating the influence of the content of steel fibres (0, 60, 75 and 90 kg/m3) and concrete strength class (50 and 70 MPa). Two reference slabs without fibre reinforcement, one for each concrete strength class, and one slab for each fibre content and each strength class compose the experimental program. All slabs were flexurally reinforced with a grid of ribbed steel bars in a percentage to assure punching failure mode for the reference slabs. Hooked ends steel fibres provided the unique shear reinforcement. The results have revealed that steel fibres are very effective in converting brittle punching failure into ductile flexural failure, by increasing both the ultimate load and deflection, as long as adequate fibre reinforcement is assured. An analytical model was developed based on the most recent concepts proposed by the fib Mode Code 2010 for predicting the punching resistance of flat slabs and for the characterization of the behaviour of fibre reinforced concrete. The most refined version of this model was capable of predicting the punching resistance of the tested slabs with excellent accuracy and coefficient of variation of about 5%.