The European littoral ecosystems are degraded due to intense economic and urbanistic activity and high population density within these areas. As a consequence, coastal areas are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The expected scenarios predict a high risk of disasters within these areas, such as sea level rise or extreme weather events like floods or storms.
In Europe, approximately one fifth of the population lives within 10 km from the coast and many littoral areas are already below sea level. Therefore, there is a need for coastal communities to adapt to climate change risks. Thus far, most of the prevention actions have been based on built engineering solutions like dykes or seawalls. More recently, coastal managers worldwide are exploring Nature-based Solutions (NbS) as a sustainable alternative to deal with climate change risks in littoral areas.
The LIFE ADAPTA BLUES project aims to demonstrate that the conservation and restoration of estuarine ecosystems is an efficient strategy to enhance adaptation to climate change in coastal areas of the European Atlantic coast.