OURCOAST – Programma DG ENV – CORILA – Consorzio per il coordinamento delle ricerche inerenti al sistema lagunare di Venezia – Consortium for coordination of research activities concerning the Venice lagoon system

Published on 09-02-2022

Experiences and best practices in coastal planning and management

WEB SITE

OURCOAST – DG ENV

Programme or Providing body: Directorate General (DG) Environment of the European Commission
Project title: OURCOAST
Acronym: OURCOAST
Duration: 01/01/2009-31/12/2012
Project budget:1 milione di €
CORILA budget: xx
Contact person in CORILA: dabala@corila.it
Keywords:Coast, Environment, Coastal sustainable and integrated management

Abstract

OURCOAST was a project commissioned by the Directorate General (DG) Environment of the European Commission to support and ensure the exchange of experiences and best practices in coastal planning and management. Through OURCOAST, the European Commission ensured that lessons learned from the coastal management experiences and practices were shared and made accessible to those who are seeking sustainable solutions to their coastal management practices. OURCOAST focused in particular on adaptation to risks and the impacts of climate change, on information and communication systems, on planning and land management instruments, and on institutional coordination mechanisms.

Overall objective

Since 1996, the European Commission has intensively worked to promote Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) as an approach to integrated planning and management, in which all policies, sectors and interests are properly taken into account to achieve sustainable coastal development. However, the lack of proper means for exchange experiences and access to outstanding studies and best practices performed in coastal European countries represented a constraint to the ICZM implementation. OURCOAST tried to help filling in this gap by providing a platform for knowledge exchange, while demonstrating and exemplifying that integrated approaches are preferable to sectorial ones. OURCOAST therefore represented a further step in the joint efforts of the European Commission, Member States, coastal regions and networks to support and implement sustainable integrated coastal planning and management.

Main results

The main final product of OURCOAST is the ICZM Database – a comprehensive compilation of hundreds of case study summaries that reflect successful examples of ICZM tools applied throughout Europe. A multilingual website will host the ICZM database and will provide navigation and information about OURCOAST in ten European languages.

This will be done and complemented by a series of other activities, all of public interest for the implementation of ICZM in Europe. Such activities include:

Collection, description and evaluation of a minimum of 350 ICZM case studies.
Comparative analysis of ICZM experiences leading to an overview of the state-of-the-art by theme and typical success and fail factors.
Review of most relevant EU policies and legislation and their effects for the implementation of coastal zone management and marine planning.
Development and validation of guidelines directed to authorities to promote the future integrated coastal and marine planning and for the design of policies and tools.
Development of recommendations that can set the implementation agenda of ICZM for the next decade.
Development of a contact list of EU, national, regional, local coastal and marine stakeholders and other interested parties on ICZM implementation.
Organisation of a final stakeholder’s event in Latvia (Autumn 2011).