Increasing riparian and coastal areas resilience to climate change, including in waterfront cities and islands.

Expected Outcome:

This topic aims at directly engaging with and supporting riparian and coastal areas, waterfront cities and islands and their communities in demonstrating and accelerating the transitions needed for achieving one or several objectives of the Mission “Restore our Ocean and Waters”. The participation of relevant public bodies managing those areas and their communities as partners of the consortium is strongly encouraged.

Project results are expected to contribute to all the following outcomes:

• Member States and Associated Countries are provided with cost-effective and innovative solutions to increasing riparian and coastal areas’ resilience to climate change, especially in waterfront cities and islands, contributing to reach the targets of the EU climate adaptation and water resilience strategies for 2030, but also supporting achievements of the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030, the Water Framework and the Marine Strategy Framework directives;
• Enhanced ecological functions of riparian and coastal areas including in waterfront cities and islands (e.g.: water quality improvement, pollution remediation, erosion control, morpho-dynamics and sediment transport, biodiversity conservation and restoration);
• Reduced vulnerability to climate change related risks (e.g.: lowering flood risks by increasing their natural buffer capacity; adapting to sea level rises and extreme events, and enhancing drought resilience by increasing groundwater recharge functions, carbon sequestration, reducing harmful algal blooms, etc.) with biodiversity co-benefits;
• Increased socio-economic benefits deriving from protecting and restoring riparian and coastal areas and from the remediation of pollution, as well as for recreational and touristic activities;
• Stakeholders and local competent authorities managing riparian and coastal areas, including in waterfront cities and islands (not limited only to those who are partners in the consortium), are engaged to implement and upscale innovative solutions that contribute to increasing resilience to climate change and water-related risks, including by strengthening synergies with their own programmes and resources and encouraging public and private investment.

Scope:

Riparian and coastal areas play a critical role in local climate regulation and serve as the buffer regions between land and waterways, providing a wide array of important ecosystem services such as acting as natural barriers against storm surges, flooding, and erosion, filtering pollutants from the water, regulating floods, providing habitats for species and increasing soil health. sequestering carbon. Islands, which offer invaluable natural resources that support people, cultures and livelihoods, are particularly vulnerable to climate change.^[1]

The proposal should build (when relevant) on previously developed or existing solutions by other projects, funded by EU and national programmes, in particular the European Union Framework programmes for Research and Innovation ^[2], the co-funded Partnership Water Security for the Planet (Water4All)^[3] as well as ERDF, INTERREG and LIFE programmes. Proposals are also encouraged to consider -- where relevant -- the services offered by European research infrastructures^[4]. The proposals should take in consideration the projects to be funded under HORIZON-MISS-2025-01-CLIMA-03: Demonstrating solutions to help hotspots in coastal regions to adapt to climate change.

Each proposal should address only one basin/Mission 'lighthouse', which should be explicitly stated in the proposal, i.e.: 1. Atlantic and Arctic sea basin or 2. Mediterranean Sea basin or 3. Baltic and North Sea basin or 4. Danube River basin (including its delta and the Black Sea). Activities should be tailored to address regional/sea basin specificities, with strong and meaningful involvement of public administrations, including relevant island public authorities. The basins / Mission “lighthouses” include the river basins flowing into the respective sea basins.

Proposals should:

• Test and demonstrate effective solutions in riparian and coastal areas including in waterfront cities and islands to achieve the Mission’s objectives and targets and to address resilience of communities living in those areas to relevant climate change impacts. Proposals are encouraged to have an emphasis on Nature-based Solutions, an integrated source-to-sea approach including land-sea interactions, transboundary actions and the regeneration of the blue economy;
• Show a significant replication potential by identifying areas and locations where the proposed solutions could be replicable. An action plan and roadmap needed for the replication and scale up of the solutions for improving resilience to climate change of islands and riparian and coastal areas are expected to be drawn up by the end of the project;
• Monitor the impacts and effectiveness of demonstration activities at a local scale. The project should link with the activities carried out under the Digital Twin Ocean, in particular those addressing coastal and freshwaters, and support data and knowledge sharing through the Ocean and Water Knowledge System, as well as benefiting from it to foster cross-region, pan-European approaches. Monitoring should cover the societal acceptance of the proposed measures; Monitoring effort should be aligned with long-term ecological and biodiversity observation programmes to ensure the resilience of islands and riparian and coastal areas tracked and understood over decadal timescales.
• Work in a meaningful and very close way with and empower public authorities to accelerate the implementation of innovative solutions and encourage the active participation of citizens (e.g. through living labs);
• Provide recommendations and guidance to align the improvement of resilience to climate change of riparian and coastal areas including in waterfront cities and islands regarding new policy measures and green infrastructure projects and to strengthen cooperation across relevant sectors (water, navigation, fisheries, hydropower and energy, etc.);
• Facilitate synergies^[5] with other R&I-relevant EU, national or regional programmes, and facilitate the leveraging of funding (e.g. structural or cohesion funds such as ERDF, or LIFE) through meaningful engagement with regional/local/city authorities, and the private sector where relevant;
• Projects should carry out at least 6 demonstration activities in different types of riparian and coastal areas, including in waterfront cities and islands, to prove in real conditions the operational feasibility and economic viability of innovative solutions to enhance resilience of riparian and coastal areas to climate change and provide biodiversity co-benefits. The consortium should carry out demonstration activities in at least 3 different countries of the basin addressed by the proposal.

Regional and Local authorities, as well as inland water management bodies, are encouraged to be partners in the consortium to ensure that effective solutions are tailored to the context of each island and riparian and coastal area.

Projects are expected to work with and engage at least 5 ‘associated regions’ (represented by local/regional authorities/public bodies) to show the effectiveness of solutions to increase resilience and develop a replication plan for its uptake in an ‘associated region’ and build capacity at local level. Beneficiaries may therefore provide Financial Support to Third Parties (see the Specific Conditions table for this topic). Projects should (1) proactively reach out to the 'associated regions' to enable them to follow closely the project’s activities, (2) continuously share their outcomes and knowledge with those ‘associated regions’ and (3) provide them with technical assistance to build capacity and to implement in their territory the approach they developed.

Proposals should collaborate with the Coordination and Support Action (CSA) for the relevant Mission 'lighthouse'[[Information on the Mission Lighthouse CSAs is available at https://projects.research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/en/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe/eu-missions-horizon-europe/restore-our-ocean-and-waters/mission-lighthouses and the Mission Implementation Platform^[6], including to track progress toward Mission objectives. Collaboration with the Water Oriented Living Labs promoted by the Water4All partnership is welcomed where appropriate.

Cooperation with the EU Outermost Regions^[7] is encouraged, given these regions’ natural assets.

This action supports the follow-up to the July 2023 Communication on EU Missions assessment.

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[1] Final version of the text will include a definition of areas covered, including links to Copernicus Land Service layers. It will include also transitional waters.

[2] e.g. FP7 REFRESH

[3] https://www.water4all-partnership.eu/

[4] The catalogue of European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures (ESFRI) research infrastructures portfolio can be browsed from ESFRI website https://ri-portfolio.esfri.eu/

[5] See Commission Notice on synergies between Horizon Europe and ERDF programmes C(2022) 4747 final

[6] https://projects.research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/en/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe/eu-missions-horizon-europe/restore-our-ocean-and-waters/mission-ocean-and-waters-service-portal

[7] https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/policy/themes/outermost-regions_en