Coastal + Marine

Ecologic Institute published a briefing for the ENVI Committee of the European Parliament to guide their participation in the upcoming UN Ocean Conference to be held June 2017 in New York City. The brief provides a short overview of the UN 2030 Agenda and specifically, Sustainable Development Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development (SDG 14). The brief identifies key issues and the position of main stakeholders. In a final section, several recommendations to guide EU participation are provided. The briefing is available for download.

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Europe's coastlines are a product of human cultivation. Since settling on the coast, humans have engineered the coastal characteristics to suit the purposes of states, the economy and human recreation. At the time of the Treaties of Rome, Europe had just emerged from the devastating aftermath of the Second World War with a 'great hunger' for a liberal life style, leisure activities and travel. The diverse and scenic views of Europe's coasts offered the ideal destination for such endeavors. Soon, a rapid coastal urbanization coupled with a steady increase in mass tourism emerged. Spurred by the trust in technical and engineering capacities, new bold attitudes about building and living on the sea often interfered with the natural sediment transport of coastal systems, leading to erosion. Today, more than 42% of Europeans live in coastal regions with coastal infrastructure worth about 959 billion EURO. Recent and historic high-impact storm events have demonstrated that weather events pose a significant risk and can immobilize cities and countries. The FP7 project, Resilience-Increasing Strategies for Coasts – toolKIT (RISC-KIT), recently issued a policy brief to communicate lessons learned and to support the dissemination of tools, which coastal managers to improve coastal resilience in Europe and elsewhere.Read more