Coastal erosion is one of the highly growing environmental concerns faced by coastal communities, aggravated by the prospect of accelerated sea level rise due to climate change and the accumulated negative effects of mismanagement practices. Over the past 100 years about 70% of the world's sandy shorelines have been retreating due to coastal erosion, while currently around 20% of EU coastline is eroding. Coastal erosion is directly linked to economic losses due to coastal retreat and loss of land, ecological damage (especially of valuable coastal habitats) and societal problems. In the BMP area the impact of high-frequency and high intensity winter storms, the effect of sediment blockage due to river damming, the degradation of beach stability in areas of urban and tourist activities and the lack of integrated approach in human interventions have led to significant coastal erosion rates. Presently, almost 30% of coasts in Greece are eroding or appear as vulnerable to erosion. In Cyprus this percentage reaches 38%, while in Bulgaria almost 71% of Black Sea beaches are eroding. In Albania, a country with 420 km coastline, coastal erosion is a significant issue for the northern and central parts. HERMES aims to develop a unified and harmonized framework for coastal erosion mitigation and beach restoration covering the four partner countries (Albania, Cyprus, Greece and Bulgaria) through the implementation of a coherent ensemble of studies, the sharing of already developed technical tools and the design of joint policy instruments. HERMES will aid coastal stakeholders to harmonize and adapt to the most relevant EU policies on coastal zones, as CC, Integrated Maritime Policy, Maritime Spatial Planning, ICZM, Marine Strategy and Water Framework Directives, Inspire, etc. Coastal municipalities and regional authorities, coastal users, local and international NGOs, landowners and businesses situated in or near coastal areas will benefit from project outputs.
HERMES capitalizes on previous EU-funded projects (BeachMED, CoastGAP, Coastance, Mare Nostrum) to build a joint coastal erosion methodological framework to be applied at four study sites (one per partner country). At each site: historic and future coastline retreat will be evaluated; erosion and climate change vulnerability indicators will be derived; causes related to human interventions will be assessed; existing environmental and socio-economic data will be integrated into a coastal webGIS; a modeling toolkit (meteorologic, hydrodynamic, wave and morphodynamic) will be applied; a series of intervention scenarios will be tested and evaluated. HERMES will place emphasis on the promotion of environmental-friendly technical works for coastal restoration (e.g., beach and dune stabilization, beach nourishment). Workshops and seminars will be organized to train national, regional and local managers on the use of HERMES system and raise the public awareness on the proposed action plan.HERMES project will support the design of an appropriate coastal erosion and climate change resilience management strategy for the coastal communities of the partner-countries involved. Through HERMES, coastal zone management authorities and administrations will upgrade their current level of adaptation to related to coastal erosion mitigation and climate change resilience, while fostering the transnational exchange of knowledge and expertise across Europe and the Med. The project is in-line with the recommendations proposed by the Pan-European EUROSION study, published in 2004, emphasizing on the implementation of ‘soft’ actions, to restore sediment imbalances and enhance coastal resilience. Through HERMES emphasis will be placed on the inherent ability of the coast to accommodate climate change impacts (sea level rise, extreme events) and occasional human impacts, while maintaining the basic ecosystemic functions and processes of a typical coastal system in the long-term. HERMES will result: a) in the configuration of a unified methodology to approach the problem of coastal erosion, aiming to understand its causes and mitigate its impacts on the environment, the economy, and the society, promoting the environmental-friendly technologies of dune stabilization and nourishment, geosystems and other ‘soft’ measures to decision-makers, policy-experts, the technical world and the wider audience; b) in the application of a series of well-known tools (satellite imagery, instrumentation installation, numerical models set-up and operational functioning, erosion and climate change risk assessment, scenarios implementation for best technique adopted per study site evaluation), c) in the elaboration of joint guidelines on ‘soft’ engineering implementation and technical and policy recommendations for erosion and climate change mitigation, d) in the development of joint actions to support territorial and regional cooperation to tackle common challenges.HERMES will produce the following outputs: a) a knowledge-based network to upgrade the capacity related to coastal erosion mitigation and CC resilience of authorities involved in the coastal zone management in the participating countries; b) a harmonized methodological framework describing the terms of reference of a coherent set of studies and the utilization of existing sophisticated tools (monitoring systems, models, assessment indicators), c) a series of seminars organized to train decision-makers on the use of HERMES system, d) a set of joint technical and policy documents referring to the best management practices and implementation guidelines to mitigate erosion and upgrade CC adaptation; e) the pilot application of this framework into four testing sites (one per partner country), where joint actions will be undertaken: to evaluate historic and future coastline retreat rates; to assess erosion and climate change vulnerability indicators; to explore the relative influence of causes related to human interventions; to determine dominant and extreme meteorologic, wave and hydrodynamic fields; to define coastal morphological patterns (textural analysis, beach profiles); to develop a coastal web PPGIS platform coupling environmental and socio-economic data; to apply an environmental modeling toolkit, comprised of meteorologic, wave, hydrodynamic and morphodynamic modules; to install stations for in-situ waves and currents monitoring; to test various erosion mitigation measures emphasizing on ‘soft’ engineering techniques (dune stabilization, nourishment, geosystems). Through these outputs the project will accomplish its specific objectives, formulating a concrete network of agencies working jointly on coastal erosion, upgrading the current level of research in the field of coastal sustainable development, enhancing responses to challenges driven by climate change, and promoting the sustainable resources use to serve local economies and jobs creation.