Better protection and restoration of coastal ecosystems

Managing urban Biodiversity and Green Infrastructure to increase city resilience in Coimbra (UrbanGaia project)

The aim is to develop realistic indicators to evaluate, manage and develop performant GBIs in cities and intensively managed landscapes. UrbanGaia explicitly focusses on analysis of ecological and socio-economic features of the many existing GBIs within a place-based and socio-ecological research framework. The project consists of three main approaches which converge in a transdisciplinary analysis of GBI performance: ecological science, political economic analysis and stakeholder co-creation.

Medmerry, West Sussex coastal flooding

The managed realignment project at Medmerry is the biggest on the open-coast in Europe (Image: Environment Agency)

Sustainable flood risk management: It will provide a higher standard of protection to the area
Creation of compensatory intertidal habitat: Delivering 183ha of intertidal habitat, including mudflat, saltmarsh and transitional grassland.
Involvement of local communities: Creating new access routes and viewpoints

H2020 AQUACROSS Case Study 2: Analysis of transboundary water ecosystems, Green and Blue Infrastructures in the Intercontinental Biosphere Reserve of the Mediterranean (IBRM): Andalusia (Spain) – Morocco.

El Estrecho (c) Alejandro Iglesias-Campos

Protecting areas to protect biodiversity: The IBRM is home to several remarkable protected sites, high biodiversity richness and an important cultural heritage. However, pressures from human activities in the area are threatening these distinct values. Our aim is to use diverse data plus stakeholder input to understand the social and ecological system and design a multifunctional network of areas – that allow conservation, exploitation and restoration - and identify ideal sites for restoring degraded freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems.