The Eurecat technology centre is taking part in a European project to restore the coastline and adapt it to the effects of climate change. It is an action plan for the next four years funded by the European Union under European Green Deal policies and led by the UPC’s Maritime Engineering Laboratory (LIM). It includes pilot projects in the Ebro Delta and other parts of the Mediterranean, the Baltic, the Black Sea and the North Sea.
Coastal areas are experiencing progressive degradation and increasing risks due to human activity including the impact of sea storms and rising sea levels. They have the highest population densities in the world and are developing and urbanising faster than inland areas. However, they are also among the most productive and biodiverse environments with a significant and often underestimated carbon storage potential, i.e. coastal blue carbon sequestered by coastal ecosystems.
The European Large Scale RESToration of COASTal Ecosystems through Rivers to Sea Connectivity (REST-COAST) project is now seeking to lessen coastal risks, enhance biodiversity and develop coastal blue carbon to mitigate the effects of climate change. This four-year action plan to restore the coastline will be replicable and scalable to other coastlines worldwide. Kicked off in October, the project has a budget of €18.4 million and is part of the European Horizon 2020 programme. It aims to build decarbonised coastal protection coupled with a contribution to climate mitigation through sequestration of blue carbon in coastal and marine ecosystems which is highly efficient compared to other terrestrial ecosystems.
REST-COAST is led by researcher Agustín Sánchez-Arcilla, director of the Maritime Engineering Laboratory (LIM) at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia · BarcelonaTech (UPC) and a professor at the School of Civil Engineering. It is the only project under the European Green Deal addressing restoring coastal biodiversity and ecosystem services. Scientists will analyse 12 vulnerable European coastal hotspots including three main pilot areas: the Ebro Delta, the Wadden Sea in the North Sea and the Venice Lagoon in the Adriatic. They will also study a lagoon in the Baltic, a bay in the Black Sea, the Rhone Delta, Arcachon Bay on the French Atlantic coast, low-lying coasts in Sicily and the Nahal Dalia estuary in Israel.
Drawing on nature-based solutions
The expected results will translate into technical, funding and policy breakthroughs in large-scale coastal restoration and lead to measures to roll out nature-based solutions. These natural solutions will enhance the connectivity of the river-delta-estuary-coastal-sea system. This will involve state-of-the-art modelling and monitoring, biodiversity restoration techniques, new avenues in joint funding and advances in the integration of environmental and climate management and policies. Early warning systems will also be developed to improve coastal sustainability and forestall the effects of storms, such as Storm Gloria in 2020, which will be compounded by considerably higher sea level rises than at present.
A climate laboratory in the Ebro Delta
Solutions for the Ebro Delta pilot study are based on river-delta-coastal connectivity, durability of sediment resources, restoration of coastal habitats and monitoring to support coastal and river management. The plan includes in particular sediment bypassing and hydro-morphodynamic buffering to counteract the effects of sea level rise and storms. Climate change, rising sea levels, wave action and other factors such as the currents generated by breaking waves are leading to erosion, destruction of the Trabucador sandbar, narrower and more unstable beaches and progressive closure of el Fangar bay in the northern half of the Delta. Hence the scientists are going to work on nature-based measures to help diminish these effects.
Early action will also be taken through the warning system when the forecast suggests extreme storms. Water-sediment-ecosystem interaction is additionally to be investigated under present climate conditions and under artificial warming which simulates future climate conditions to assess how ecosystem services will evolve. This analysis will be carried out onsite in the Ebro Delta by setting up an environmental parameter control booth as a provisional climate laboratory.
The project will contribute towards a sustainable response to the climate crisis and help to protect coastal ecosystems and biodiversity which are unique and hard to restore when they go beyond certain limits of degradation. The project will include measures to achieve net zero emissions in Europe by 2050. RES-COAST brings together 38 partners from 11 countries: Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Israel, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom. In addition to Eurecat, the LIM and the UPC’s International Centre for Coastal Resources Research, the Spanish partners are Albirem; the Technical University of Madrid; the Ministry of Climate Action, Food and Rural Agenda of the Government of Catalonia and the Catalan Water Agency (reporting to the Ministry); the Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, and the NGO SEO-Birdlife.
