Nature conservation and urban development control in the Portuguese planning system: a new impetus against old praxis?

Natura 2000 areas bring a new incentive to assess the performance of land‐use planning in protecting environmental values from the impacts of development pressures. In the last decades, urban growth and consequent environmental impacts on natural areas have been a major concern for the Portuguese land‐use planning system. Sprawl around sensitive areas has been revealed to be a persistent phenomenon in spite of the increasing challenges...