THESEUS Project – Innovative coastal technologies for safer European coasts in a changing climate

Coastal areas are vital economic hubs in terms of settlement, industry, agriculture, trade and tourism. There are already many coastal problems including erosion, flood risk and long-term habitat deterioration. As economies continue to develop the asset base at risk will grow, while accelerating climate change will increase the likelihood of damaging extreme events, as well as accelerate habitat decline. Existing coastal management and defence approaches are not well tuned to these challenges as they assume a static situation.

THESEUS develops a systematic approach to delivering both a low-risk coast for human use and healthy habitats for evolving coastal zones subject to multiple change factors. The innovative combined mitigation and adaptation technologies to be considered include ecologically-based mitigation measures, hydro-morphodynamic techniques, actions to reduce the impact on society and economy and GIS-based software to support defence planning.

The case studies examined in the project includes 2 Italian sites along the coast of the Emilia-Romagna Region: Cesenatico and Bellocchio. Both areas are characterized by a slight elevation of the land compared to the current sea level and are affected by subsidence and erosion. They are therefore vulnerable to coastal flooding.
For both sites, short, medium and long-term weather and sea scenarios were developed, taking into account the expected increase in the average sea level.