This initiative is led by the Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITERD) and financed by the European Union. MedCities leads the project stakeholders’ engagement and communication component and participated in the meetings celebrated in Malaga

The official launching, opened by the Spanish State Secretary for Environment, Hugo Morán, gathered high level representatives of the central, regional and provincial governments as well as of the EC Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM) which finances the project. This was the occasion to present the ongoing work being undertaking to define the Coastal Protection Strategies for the three provinces which should be ready by early 2021.

The project, led by MITERD and financed by the European Union, aims to identify coastal erosion problems in order to tackle them with an integrated approach based on criteria of economic and environmental sustainability.

The official meeting was followed by a week of workshops – up to 14 – hosted by the government delegations of the different provinces and organized by the project team, the Sub-Directorate General for Coastal Protection of MITERD and its provincial services.

The consultation aimed to collect information on the participants’ perception on coastal protection management problems in order to take them into consideration for the Integrated Risk Analysis on which the Strategy will be based. It moreover served to gather lessons learnt from coastal protection and management actions already undertaken in Andalucía.

MedCities actively engaged in the meetings celebrated in the city of Málaga, member of the network, which counted with the participation of technicians from different municipal services and other collaborators of our network, as CIEDES Foundation, OMAU and the ETC from the University of Málaga, which include coastal ecosystem resilience to climate change as one of the focus of their work.

The project aims to apply an integrated approach, considering those physical, environmental and institutional factors interrelated with coastline evolution, flood risk, public domain occupations, erosion problems and the effects of climate change, to identify the most appropriate coastal protection measures

The work is being undertaken by a European consortium led by the Coastal & Marine Union (EUCC) which includes the Environmental Hydraulics Institute (IHCantabria), the University of Cádiz, MedCities and a panel of international experts under, the direction of MITERD.

Last 2019 the consortium worked on an integrated diagnosis while in 2020 the efforts will focus on the analysis of scenarios and the selection and proposal of risk reduction measures. This will lead to the definition of the Strategies for Coastal Protection of the provinces of Cádiz, Málaga and Almeria by early 2021.