On the coast of the Baltic Sea in Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, climate change and the region’s possibilities to adapt to it will be researched for five years. As one of seven selected regions across Germany, it will be funded with close to nine million euros by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of the ministry’s initiative KLIMZUG (“Managing climate change in the regions for the future”).

The RADOST („Regional Adaptation Strategies for the German Baltic Sea Coast“) project will be carried out by a network of more than 60, mostly regional, partners. The essential idea of the project, coordinated by the Ecologic Institute in Berlin, is to establish a close linkage between science and practice. Besides research facilities like the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde, the University of Kiel, and the University of Rostock, a number of public authorities like the State Agency of Environment and Nature (StAUN) Rostock and the State Agency for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Areas Schleswig-Holstein (LLUR) are directly engaged in the project. Engineering companies and other regional businesses will explore applications of research results

Today, millions of euros per year are already invested in coastal protection in the region. The efficient usage of these funds requires predictions about the coastline's future development to be as precise as possible. However, the specific impacts of climate change – caused by the rising sea level, modified currents or an increase in surges – are still very uncertain. RADOST will link leading models of water levels, swell, currents and matter transport and illustrate these changes in more detail than before.

Baltic Sea coast tourism could quite possibly be amongst the winners of climate change. Higher temperatures not only give the opportunity to extend the bathing season but could also drive tourists, for whom the Mediterranean region is becoming too hot, up to northern beaches. However, the increase of the water temperature is an issue for its quality, the more so since the Baltic Sea already suffers from excess nutrient input. Within RADOST, the changes in conditions of nutrient input from agriculture will be analysed in detail.

Furthermore, the RADOST project will also focus on nature conservation, ports and maritime economy, as well as renewable energies. Implementation projects will illustrate the economic opportunities of innovative responses to climate change. Examples thereof include combining coastal protection constructions with diving tourism activities or geothermal energy generation and market perspectives for the cultivation of algae, seashells and other marine organisms; design optimisation of ships for the use on routes through the Baltic Sea under future environmental conditions; and new marketing strategies for beach tourism.

The regional project launch is scheduled to take place on 5/6 October 2009 in Rostock-Warnemünde. RADOST will be presented at the “Küstenmanagement und Klimawandel” (coastal management and climate change) congress along with a number of other research projects on similar subjects. The first RADOST regional conference is planned for early 2010.

More than 50 partners from public administration (federal, state and regional authorities and municipalities), business (associations and individual companies) and research institutions have agreed to participate. The network is continuously being expanded.