SARCC
Sustainable and Resilient Coastal Cities (SARCC) is an Interegg 2 Seas program that will mainstream nature-based solutions (NBS) into coastal management and policy making. This could contain stand alone projects or NBS-hybrids, where they are integrated into existing grey infrastructure and flood defenses.
The project is about building the capacity of urban leaders, decision-makers and officers involved in coastal flood defenses to deploy NBS and understand the additional benefits that they offer in comparison to traditional grey infrastructure.
This web page is an online environment to learn about the SARCC project, the original webpage is accessible through this link.
Why is this project needed?
Mean sea level rise (SLR) could increase by 1.5m-2.5m by 2100. This could cause damage by coastal flooding in Europe to increase from €1.25bn per annuum currently to €961bn in just over 80 years (European Commission, 2018). Urban areas situated along the 2 Seas coastline are particularly vulnerable to extreme Sea Level Rise (a combination of SLR, tide and storm surges). Coastal flood plans and policies focus predominantly on deploying traditional grey infrastructure/heavy engineering and ignore the use of NBS, despite the overwhelming evidence of their potential to reduce flood risk and provide multiple benefits. NBS are often not considered by policy-makers in detail due to the perceived risks around costs, potential for success, requirements for immediate protection / improvement and uncertainties regarding future change. A clear knowledge gap exists across coastal local authorities to deploy NBS as a means to reduce future coastal flood risk and economic damage.(SARCC partnership,2019)
