Future-proofing Europe’s coastal cities against climate change
Rising sea levels, coastal erosion and extreme weather events have created an urgent need to increase the climate resilience of Europe’s coastal cities.
Salem Gharbia, SCORE project coordinator
Europe’s coastal regions are not only some of the most biodiverse on Earth, many also have substantial human populations – not to mention being critical hubs for industry and other economic activity. They’re also particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. “Rising sea levels, coastal erosion and extreme weather events have created an urgent need to increase the climate resilience of Europe’s coastal cities,” says Salem Gharbia, head of the Department of Environmental Science at the Atlantic Technological University in Ireland. With the support of the SCORE project, Gharbia is coordinating an effort to future-proof coastal cities by exploiting natural features and processes, aided by digital technologies such as digital twins, sensors and Earth Observation data, amongst others. “The challenge is to match the nature-based solutions with the right available technology,” remarks Gharbia. The project’s Coastal City Living Labs play a critical role in this. Spread across 10 coastal cities, the labs look to co-design solutions that fit each city’s individual climate-related challenges.
Climate and tourism
In Sligo, Ireland, an increase in storm surges and flooding has resulted in substantial erosion to the local sand dunes, washing away archaeological sites and closing heritage venues. To address this challenge, the Living Lab is testing numerous hybrid nature-based solutions, including the creation of vegetated buffer zones within the dune systems. “In Sligo, like in many other coastal areas, climate change poses a direct threat to tourism, which is strongly tied to the area’s economy,” notes Gharbia. These solutions are evaluated on a digital platform that provides feedback not just to the local lab, but to the entire network. In this way, centres learn from one another. “By the end of the project, we hope to have a validated, transferable, replicable and scalable framework that coastal communities around the world can easily adapt and implement as a means of becoming more climate-resilient,” concludes Gharbia.
Keywords
SCORE, EU missions, cities mission, adaptation mission, climate change, projects info pack, research, innovation, resilience, sustainable, urban, climate-neutral, smart mobility, clean energy