The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction provides several guidelines that countries should follow. Still, some scientific papers discussed the limitations, difficulties, and strategies in the implementation of these guidelines. The objective of this review is to understand what Setubal has done to cope with disasters, and the practical strategies to mitigate them. To achieve this, several methodological guidelines and Portuguese legal documents were analyzed.
It was found that Portugal has many tools and guidelines (all in Portuguese) to identify and characterize natural disasters, and therefore the diagnosis of disasters is in general well documented, at least at the national level. In addition, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic situation was also analyzed. The results show that the Setubal municipality is exposed to more than 20 natural and technological disasters, but this review focused only on the top four: landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, and floods. In summary, Setubal has implemented a variety of innovative practical measures that could be used as a model, not only to other Portuguese municipalities but also to urban areas in other countries.