HERMES

HERMES aims to develop a unified and harmonized framework for coastal erosion mitigation and beach restoration covering the four countries through the implementation of a coherent ensemble of studies, the sharing of already developed technical tools and the design of joint policy instruments. HERMES will aid stakeholders to harmonize and adapt to the most relevant EU policies on coastal zones, as CC, Integrated Maritime Policy, Maritime Spatial Planning, ICZM, Marine Strategy and Water Framework Directives, Inspire, etc. Coastal municipalities and regional authorities, coastal users, local and international NGOs, landowners and businesses situated in or near coastal areas will benefit from project outputs. HERMES capitalizes on previous EU-funded projects to build a joint coastal erosion methodological framework to be applied at four study sites. At each site: historic and future coastline retreat will be evaluated; erosion and climate change vulnerability indicators will be derived; causes related to human interventions will be assessed; existing environmental and socio-economic data will be integrated into a coastal webGIS; a modeling toolkit will be applied; a series of intervention scenarios will be tested and evaluated. HERMES will place emphasis on the promotion of environmental-friendly technical works for coastal restoration (e.g., beach and dune stabilization, beach nourishment).

HERMES will support the design of a coastal erosion and climate change resilience management strategy for the coastal communities of the countries involved. Management authorities will upgrade their level of adaptation related to coastal erosion mitigation and climate change resilience, while fostering the transnational exchange of knowledge across Europe and the Med. Emphasis will be placed on the ability of the coast to accommodate climate change and human impacts, while maintaining the basic functioning in the long-term. HERMES will result: a) in the configuration of a methodology to approach coastal erosion, aiming to understand its causes and mitigate impacts on the environment, the economy, and the society, promoting the environmental-friendly technologies of dune stabilization and nourishment, geosystems and other ‘soft’ measures to decision-makers, policy-experts, wider audience; b) in the application of a series of well-known tools (satellite imagery, instrumentation installation, numerical models set-up and operational functioning, erosion and climate change risk assessment, scenarios implementation for best technique adopted per study site evaluation), c) in the elaboration of joint guidelines on ‘soft’ engineering implementation and technical and policy recommendations for erosion and climate change mitigation, d) development of joint actions to support territorial and regional cooperation to tackle common challenges.