Center for Coastal & Marine Studies
Aberdeen University, School of Geosciences is calling for Competition Funded PhD Project: Developing an Innovative System for Sustainable Resilience to Coastal Erosion: A Demonstration Project for Coastal Golf Courses!
Dr D Green, Prof J McKinley (Deadline for applications: Wednesday, January 17, 2024). Competition fully funded, 42-month PhD project is part of the QUADRAT Doctoral Training Partnership (Students Worldwide)
All coastlines are subject to dynamic change through wave and wind action resulting in significant loss or gain of land through erosion and/or accretion. Many areas around the World are increasingly being exposed to such threats resulting in partial or complete loss of assets in the most severe cases. In the future, climate change will likely accelerate the rate of coastline change with rising sea levels and more frequent and energetic storms. Widespread evidence of climate change impacts on coasts around the world, when coupled with increasing demands being placed on dwindling management budgets, and the need to protect valuable coastal assets suggests the need for new, more cost-effective, approaches to local coastal management problems.
A focus on developing new, low-cost, and environmentally sustainable solutions will be important. This research project will design, model, implement and test a novel coastal engineering solution for the protection of coastal assets at risk, specifically golf courses. A hybrid-protection solution using sustainable materials bound into a flexible and tethered structure, allowing wind- and water-borne material to penetrate, and be captured by the structure, will be developed, and tested. This will be a low-cost structure easily installed, maintained, and managed at the local community level.
New MSP research paper is now available online: Land-Sea-Interactions in MSP and ICZM: A regional perspective from the Mediterranean and the Black Sea
We are happy to promote our newly published joint research paper in Marine Policy Journal (Elsevier): Land-Sea-Interactions in MSP and ICZM: A regional perspective from the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, a collaboration of:
• t-ELIKA, Venice, Italy
• Priority Actions Programme/Regional Activity Centre (PAP/RAC), Split, Croatia
• Prostorsko načrtovanje, Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Center for Coastal and Marine Study (CCMS), Varna, Bulgaria
• Planning Authority, Malta
• IUAV University of Venice, Department of Architecture and Arts, Planning and Climate Change Lab, Venice, Italy
• Institute of Marine Science (ISMAR), National Research Council (CNR), Venice, Italy
Land-sea interactions are relevant for marine spatial planning. Natural processes at the land-sea interface shape the terrestrial and the marine environment, influencing coastal and maritime activities in the area. Coastal and sea uses also hold numerous land-sea interactions, calling for infrastructures and services both on the land and the sea side.
In this paper the Guidelines for LSI in MSP proposed by UNEP/MAP PAP/RAC to provide practical support to land-sea interaction analysis within MSP are applied in four case studies: Bulgaria, Italy, Malta and Montenegro, within formal and informal marine spatial planning processes. The Guidelines have proved to be flexible, scalable and suitable to tiered approaches. They were adapted to the specificities of different planning, geographic, governance contexts, responding to the state and the needs of MSP development in the different countries, including non-EU ones.
CCMS at the MSP4BIO 3rd General Assembly in Split, 6-8 November 2023
The physical meeting of our MSP4BIO 3rd General Assembly was successfully held on 6 and 7 of November 2023 in Split, Croatia with more than 30 participants from all partner organisations. The event was hosted by the MSP4BIO partner PAP/RAC (Priority Actions Programme Regional Activity Centre). At the meeting partners got together to take stock of the project’s progress and achievements and discuss the way forward to successful project implementation.
Back-to-back with the 3rd General Assembly Meeting, on 8-9 November 2023, a SeaSketch training for MSP4BIO Workshop (hybrid, in-person and online) were conducted in PAP/RAC premise. Using SeaSketch, a mapping tool currently used for MSP, participants learned how to:
● Develop and conduct map-based surveys to gather information on the distribution of valued ocean spaces and ecosystem services.
● Use collaborative geodesign tools to draw, share, build and evaluate spatial scenarios that meet regional goals and objectives.
We leave motivated and energised for our upcoming period, and well-organised for our upcoming interactions with MSP4BIO Communities of Practice.
Stay tuned for further updates following the MSP4BIO website and social media:
https://msp4bio.eu/
https://twitter.com/MSP4BIO_Project
EGU2024 GM9.2 Session: Coastal Zone Geomorphological Interactions: Natural and Human-Induced Driving Factors
It is our great pleasure to invite submissions to the following Coastal and Marine Session at the EGU General Assembly 2024 meeting, Vienna, Austria & Online | 14–19 April 2024 GM9.2 Session: Coastal Zone Geomorphological Interactions: Natural and Human-Induced Driving Factors.
Conveners: Hannes Tõnisson, Margarita Stancheva, Andreas Baas, Riko Noormets, Rosa Molina Gil
The Session is Co-sponsored by the Commission on Coastal Systems (CCS) of the International Geographical Union (IGU) (https://igu-coast.org/).
ABSTRACT SUBMISSION: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU24/abstractsubmission/48147
IMPORTANT DATES:
• 01 Dec 2023, 13:00 CET Deadline for support applications
• 10 Jan 2024, 13:00 CET Deadline for receipt of abstracts
Coastal zones worldwide face a great variety of environmental impacts as well as increased anthropogenic pressures of urbanization and rapid population growth. Over the last decade coastal erosion has emerged as a widespread problem that causes shoreline retreat and irreversible land losses. The attempts of managers and other stakeholders to cope with erosion using different types of hard engineering methods often aggravate this problem, damaging natural landscapes and ecosystems in unexpected and unpredicted ways. Other negative impacts of human activities on littoral environments are the chronic and punctual pollution of beach and coastal sediments, with associated health risks for human beings.
