The mythic phrase[1] of May 1968, that lead the protest imperialism and the consume society, might be present during the worldwide coastal development in the subsequent decades. Several coastal Royal Decrees, Laws, and Regional Governmental Ordinances appeared to counter acts the huge and badly orchestrate coastal anthropogenic transformation due to sun and beach tourism frenzy.
Unlike what is observed in the map of Malaga of 1805, the recovery area of the beaches has been strongly reduced. Nowadays, the passage of a storm generates hundreds of incidents along the coastline of dozens of countries related to the destruction of coastal protection, beaches, and biodiversity, but also the flooding of promenades, coastal services, and homes. The costs of reconstruction, cleaning, replacement, and defense, which range from hundreds of thousands to several million euros per incident, cannot be assumed by private entities or local organizations. They are joined by the question of what will happen in the next storm, or in the incoming years by the sea level rise.
The threat posed by climate change on the coast is taking on a relevant role today and on the agenda of politicians and coastal managers. The adverse effects produced by the storms on the already highly transformed coastal strip throughout the world are leading to a great extent to the lack of protection of the coast. This situation of discomfort of coastal communities grows as does vulnerability, danger, coastal risk, and the interest of managers due to its high and growing cost for local, regional, and national coffers. The pressures (of all kinds) due to the recurring and more frequent episodes of erosion and flooding are creating a breeding ground that can lead to urgent interventions supported by poorly informed decisions that will lead to even more expensive interventions in the future. This situation is aggravated if the legislative situation of each country on the coast is added to the equation.
The strategies that can be followed were documented in several manuscripts during decades. Those strategies can be the managed realignment, the hold the line, move seaward or limited intervention or do nothing. All of them were applied with adequacy in the past, but right now, data and methods allow new approximations to face on the issue.
The information about exponentially increases during the last few years and now researchers, consultancies and government have available data from climate observations, satellite imagery, global, European, and regional modelling, spatial data that contains soil uses, buildings, ports, dikes, population density, fish hatcheries or Posidonia meadows, among many others. These data feed several local modellings that allow to quantify the affection or repercussion of any new soft or hard intervention in the coast.
🎯| Workshop aims.
The workshop will create a working space where will be contextualized the efforts that researchers, consultancies and administrations made during the last decades to enable the activities and use of the coastal areas, saving the criteria of the green economy for the next century.
Several specific objectives are proposed to approach from different points of view:
- Contextualize the coastal erosion and the economics activities at the littoral.
- The legislation of the coasts and the environmental responsibility: managers, scope, protection, and administrations involved.
- Study cases determining the coastal erosion.
- Four work areas are established for:
- Modeling coastal agents (from global to local drivers).
- Modeling the seabed properties and morphology
- Modeling coastal process from space.
- Quantifying the risk for flooding a erosion.
- The role of the coastal managers
Open debates will be open at the end of every session with the objective of establishing a common framework that allows unifying the evaluation criteria of processes and thus strengthening the knowledge base of the management of coastal erosion and its planning.
📋| Contents of course.
The first day focus on a wide introduction to the context of European coastal erosion giving some clues about legislation, economic activities and administrations involved. During the afternoon, some current key projects (international, European, Spanish, and regional) will be exposed.
The second day is proposed the working areas. Four sessions that covered the full methodology applied in ICCOAST project will be presented. Attendants will be guided to understand and use the tools necessary to assess coastal erosion and flooding. This methodology is avant-garde, and it is the first time that has been applied for coastal modelling.
During the third day, policymakers, administrations and consultancies will expose their experiences and opinions about the communication and relationships which each other’s revealing the complex outlook of the coastal management.
[1] Raise the cobblestones and you will see the beach!
“Con la participación de la Fundación Pública Andaluza Centro de Estudios Andaluces (ROR: https://ror.org/05v01tw04 y Crossref Funder ID 100019858, mediante el proyecto PRY128/22 titulado “ESTRATEGIAS JURIDICO-TECNICAS DE ADAPTACION Y MITIGACION AL CAMBIO CLIMATICO EN EL LITORAL ANDALUZ: UNA VISIÓN INTERDISCIPLINAR”.