Municipality-level population projections in Northern Portugal and Galicia using regional forecasts
The DataH – ’Dynamic Analysis for Territorial Approaches to Housing’ project aims to improve public housing policies in Portugal through data-driven methods that draw on housing, social, economic, and environmental data. Part of this project consists of forecasting municipal population for 2025–2100, aiming at the identification of public housing needs. Historical regional data from Statistics Portugal are used to estimate each municipality’s share of the population, which is then projected into the future using exponential smoothing models. A redistribution of the demographic numbers is carried out, taking into account municipality-level indices such as the growth rate, the elderly dependency, the renewal of the working-age population, and the migration growth rate. The methodology is also applied to data from Galicia, using information provided by the Instituto Galego de Estatística, to compare demographic dynamics and projection outcomes between Galicia and Northern Portugal.
Keywords: population projections; hierarchical time series; exponential smoothing; demographic modeling; territorial planning