The four year project, SCORE (Smart Control of the Climate Resilience in European Coastal Cities), outlines a comprehensive strategy, developed via a network of 10 coastal city ‘living labs’, to rapidly, equitably and sustainably enhance coastal city climate resilience though an Ecosystem-Based Approach (EBA) supported by sophisticated digital technologies.
The intensification of extreme weather events, coastal erosion and sea-level rise are major challenges to be urgently addressed by European coastal cities. Deaths caused by extreme weather in Europe could rise from 3,000 a year between 1981 and 2010 to 152,000 between 2071 and 2100 if mitigation pathways are not enacted to increase the resilience of European cities and settlements, based on a study in The Lancet Planetary Health journal.
To tackle this challenge, SCORE coordinated by Dr Salem Gharbia from the Institute of Technology Sligo (Ireland), will lead a consortium of international scientific institutions, cities, and SMEs in a new €10m Horizon 2020-funded research project to increase climate resilience in European coastal cities.
The SCORE interdisciplinary team consists of 28 world-leading organisations from academia, local authorities, Research Performing Organisations, and SMEs encompassing a wide range of skills including environmental science and policy, climate modelling, citizen and social science, data management, coastal management and engineering, security and technological aspects of smart sensing research.
ERINN is part of the communications and knowledge transfer team within SCORE. Senior Project Manager, Jane Maher leads ERINN’s involvement with the project.
The project will involve citizen science in providing prototype coastal city early-warning systems and will enable smart, instant monitoring and control of climate resilience in European coastal cities through open, accessible spatial ‘digital twin’ tools.
The project seeks to advance the control of climate resilience in cities in Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Slovenia and Poland.
After a recent “Kick-Off” meeting in July 2021 with academics from across Europe, Dr Gharbia said:
“SCORE will provide Europe with expandable and transferable solutions to increase climate resilience against extreme events in coastal cities. Together with our partners, we will establish a network of coastal cities that will work together and learn from each other to tackle climate change. In SCORE we want to put every effort to mitigate the effects of climate change now and in the years ahead”
SCORE will establish an integrated coastal zone management framework for strengthening the Ecosystem-Based solutions and smart coastal city policies, creating European leadership in coastal city climate change adaptation in line with The Paris Agreement.
For more information on the project, please follow @SCORE_EUproject on Twitter or SCORE on LinkedIn.
NOTES FOR EDITORS:
ABOUT SCORE PROJECT
Smart Control of the Climate Resilience in European Coastal Cities (acronym: SCORE)
Call: H2020-LC-CLA-2018-2019-2020 Topic: LC-CLA-13-2020
SCORE is a €10m Horizon 2020-funded research project to increase climate resilience in European coastal cities lead by Dr Salem Gharbia of the School of Engineering & Design at IT Sligo.
The overall aim of SCORE is to design, develop, monitor and validate robust adaptation measures in coastal and low-lying areas to protect them from increasing climate and sea level risks, including coastal flooding and erosion, to enhance their overall long-term resilience.
SCORE outlines a co-creation strategy, developed via a network of 10 coastal city ‘living labs’ (CCLLs), to rapidly, equitably and sustainably enhance coastal city climate resilience through Ecosystem-Based Approach (EBAs) and sophisticated digital technologies. SCORE will establish an integrated coastal zone management framework for strengthening EBA and smart coastal city policies, creating European leadership in coastal city climate change adaptation in line with The Paris Agreement.
SCORE will provide innovative platforms to empower stakeholders’ deployment of EBAs to increase climate resilience, business opportunities and financial sustainability of coastal cities.
The SCORE interdisciplinary team consists of 28 world-leading organisations from academia, local authorities, RPOs, and SMEs encompassing a wide range of skills including environmental science and policy, climate modelling, citizen and social science, data management, coastal management and engineering, security and technological aspects of smart sensing research.
SCORE is a four-year project starting in July 2021.
List of cities involved in the SCORE Horizon 2020 project:
Sligo and Dublin, Ireland; Barcelona, Spain; Lisbon and Oeiras, Portugal; Massa, Italy; Benidorm, Spain, Koper, Slovenia; Gdansk, Poland; and Basque Country, Spain.