A Glimpse at Impacts and Resilience in the Parish of Cernache do Bonjardim, Portugal

Abstract

The object of study here is the parish of Cernache do Bonjardim in central Portugal and in accordance with the territorial boundaries in effect until 2013. The motivation for producing this article is that the results of the 2021 census are due for publication and may enable the building of relationships between these data and the resilience of the community in this parish. Based on the resilience of rural communities’ concept, and through analysis of statistical data, we aim to understand how the variations in population and accommodation influence the different parameters of community resilience. The relevance of this work derives from its object of study and the actuality of the data. The starting data are those provided by the national institutions for the last three censuses. As there were administrative changes and impacts on the community in the last decade, there was the need to process the data to be able to analyse the studied parish in isolation. The findings demonstrate how the negative trends have continued over the last two decades, exacerbating the problems of desertification and population ageing. Therefore, the problems affecting the resilience of this community have also remained the same. As expected, the community of the parish studied proved to be resilient, despite all the setbacks and impacts suffered, as reflected in the various works developed both on this topic and on this community.