| Issue # 23 - August 2008 | |||||||||||||||
 European Coastal Action PlanWe are happy to announce the publication of the European Coastal Action Plan in a nicely illustrated booklet. It summarises the findings of the Paris Conference of 5-8 December 2007. At this conference 180 invited experts discussed critical knowledge gaps that presently hamper sustainable management of the European coastal zones. The participants brought forward a large number of topics, as expected. However, there was broad consensus about a few overarching actions, which address many of the individual topics and contribute to an integrated approach of coastal and marine issues. Major generic actions are the creation of networks of Coastal and Marine Observatories and Capacity Building Resource Centres (C-Brics). The Coastal and Marine Observatories ensure a consistent approach towards data acquisition, modeling and assessment across regions and disciplines. The C-Brics cooperate in the development of tools for coastal and marine resource management together with the development of curricula for education and training. The aim of the Action Plan is to stimulate European research cooperation for coastal and marine management. Adoption of the Action Plan by research institutions contributes to a common focus of research investments requisite for taking better benefit of the large but fragmented European research potential. The proposed generic actions go beyond the usual project-based research cooperation. They call for a fundamental change in the way knowledge is produced and applied in the coastal and marine fields. They imply a revision of the relationships between science, policy and practice in the member states and European institutions. A much closer interaction is required, if we want to deal with the challenges set by climate change, development pressure, trends in environmental quality and extreme events. If you are registered in the contact database, you will automatically receive a copy of the Action Plan. If you are not yet registered, you may do so or order copies via info@encora.eu.  National news in this issue
 International news is in this issue
  Does ENCORA meet the expectations of European coastal professionals?The ENCORA Coordination Action is a bottom-up initiative for creating greater synergy in coastal and marine management in Europe. It facilitates sharing of knowledge and experience and contributes to strengthening the interaction between science, policy and practice. Therefore national and thematic networks have been established, which develop and operate together a programme of networking services, such as Contact Search, Contact Database, Coastal Wiki, Coastweb Archive, Websearch, Coastal Forum and the Young Professionals Exchange Programme. Are these services really used and appreciated? We want to improve the networking services where necessary and therefore we are eager to get feedback from our customers. However, coastal professionals are busy people with other priorities than sending their comments and suggestions. Nevertheless, we have decided to send around next month a questionnaire about the ENCORA services. We will do our best to keep it concise and to the point. The EU funding of ENCORA stops in 2009, but many national networks (and some thematic networks) want to continue under the umbrella of the European Coastal Platform. This Platform will be established at the Littoral conference in Venice (28 November). For the follow-up, we want take account of the lessons of the past, to spend our future efforts in the most efficient way. You will greatly help us by responding to the questionnaire. We have also opened a Forum topic, where you can drop your comments and suggestions. Many thanks, on behalf of the whole ENCORA team.  ENCORA pearls – Baltic cooperation extendedICZM in a climate change perspective: important issues for the Baltic Sea ENCORA workshop in Lubiatowo, PL, 2nd – 5th June 2008 Four ENCORA countries located around the Baltic Sea – Denmark, Sweden, Poland and Germany – organized a workshop dedicated to the ICZM situation in the Baltic area. The countries have similar coasts, i.e. sandy beaches with dunes or soft cliffs, so they share common ‘initial conditions’ which should ideally be reflected in their ICZM policies. The workshop title was ‘ICZM in a climate change perspective: important issues for the Baltic Sea’. Bearing in mind the ideas generated during the Paris conference, workshop goals were: (1) FP7 project proposal in view of urging ICZM issues and gaps in the Baltic Sea, (2) options to build a network on coastal observatories in the Baltic region including teaching and capacity building aspects. Thematic issues covered physical processes, socio-economics, biology/ecology and spatial planning/management. The workshop encompassed 18 presentations and attracted 46 participants: 6 from Germany, 4 from Denmark, 7 from Sweden, 5 from Russia, 2 from Vietnam and 20 from Poland, including young professionals from most participating countries. Apart from the working sessions a visit to the Coastal Research Station was organized and the participants were informed about research activities there with focus on possible collaboration. In addition, a field trip to Slowinski National Park in £eba (20 km west of Lubiatowo) was held in order to demonstrate unique 30 m high, moving wind-blown dunes, fed by marine sand due to onshore sediment transport at this coastal segment. The dunes move east along the bar separating the Baltic Sea and Lake £ebsko and engulf the pine forest there. The major workshop outcome contains skeleton issues / themes around which the Baltic ICZM community plans to prepare a FP7 ICZM oriented research proposal. PDF versions of all presentations, the conclusions of the workshop regarding the potential joint proposal, and the picture gallery are available at the download section of the Polish ENCORA website. The presenters agreed to make their valuable workshop presentations accessible to a wider public by generating articles for the Coastal Wiki out of it. The first example can be seen at the wiki pages. Article prepared by Grzegorz Ró¿yñski, Coordinator ENCORA PL, and Clivia Häse, Officer ENCORA Germany. Echoes from YPEP From 28th June to 2nd July a young researcher, Barbara Zanuttigh, from the University of Bologna had a Short term visit for a research cooperation between two National networks of ENCORA: RIC and HISPACOSTA. This is her comment: ” In June-July 2008 I had the chance thanks to the YPEP program to visit the Universidad de Cantabria in Santander for few days. The meeting allowed to make advances in the joint work on wave reflection from berm breakwaters with the COBRAS-UC code. Results from preliminary runs were elaborated based on selected parameters and were compared with the experimental existing database on wave reflection. New runs with the model were planned to complete the work to be presented at ICCE in Hamburg (Zanuttigh, B., Vander Meer, J.W., Andersen, T. L., Losada, I. J., Lara, J. L. 2007. Analysis of wave reflection from structures with berms through an extensive database and 2DV numerical modelling).The meeting gave me also the great chance to discuss a long-term cooperation in the development of new subroutines of the COBRAS-UC code for research purposes. In my opinion, this meeting properly met the basic idea also of the local coastal networks RIC and HISPACOSTA to build up and/or enhancing exchanges of young researchers and cooperation.” We received a report about the Second CoastLab Course, held in April 2008 in Porto pointing out lasting effects of ENCORA YPEP-events: My name is Arndt Hildebrandt and I work as a Research Assistant at the Franzius-Institute in Hannover, Germany*. I have participated in the “First CoastLab Teaching School” in November 2007 through the Young Professional Exchange Program (YPEP) of ENCORA. A wide scope of practical and interesting topics in coastal engineering was covered by lessons on wave generation, measuring techniques and data analysis, movable bed models, loads on structures and laboratory equipment. Thanks to the wide range of the lessons, the group consisted of students with research interests in many areas of coastal engineering problems. This was a very good basis for discussing coastal problems as well as laboratory methods in different fields of research. In addition to the theoretical treatment of waves, we conducted an impressive excursion along the coastline of Porto. Furthermore, exchanging ideas and getting to know each other was intensified during the sociable dinner times at the aesthetic city centre of Porto. Back home, I still benefit in my daily work from the personal contacts I made during the CoastLab School, socially and in exchange on factual issues. I can say that the initialization of the CoastLab School was a very good opportunity to extend the personal knowledge on coastal engineering and to participate in the coastal network. hildebrandt@fi.uni-hannover.de, Research Assistant at the Franzius-Institute for Hydraulic, Waterways and Coastal Engineering, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany |  | ||||||||||||||
National news is in this issue
Næste call i FP7 til WP2009 Næste call i FP7 til WP2009 kommer den 3. september. Nedenfor er en række relevante datoer for interesserede. Bemærk at ifølge Kommissionen er den overordnede prioritet i 2009: "Adaptation to climate and environmental change, and related issues such as sustainable cities and coastal zones" 3. september 2008: publication of the call 8. januar 2009: deadline for proposal submission Februar 2009: remote evaluations Marts 2009: consensus meetings April 2009: quick call info for the Committee Maj 2009: evaluation report to the Committee I den forbindelse afholdes en række informationsmøder, bl.a.: - European Water Research Day on 8 September in Zaragoza - Environmental Technologies Information Day on 15 September in Brussels - Biorefinery Joint Call Information Day on 16 September in Brussels - Sustainable Development Information Day on 15-16 October in Brussels
|  Colophon The ENCORA objective is to facilitate and create new opportunities for sharing knowledge and experience on coastal issues in Europe. This electronic newsletter will inform you frequently about the activities and achievements of the network. Every issue will contain a section with news about your national network or ICZM related topics in your country. This electronic newsletter may be forwarded freely to others working in the ICZM fiels. If you would like to receive the ENCORA Newsletter directly, please contact your national coordinator or subscribe to www.encora.org. News-items for publication can be send to encore@rikz.rws.minvenw.nl. | ||||||||||||||
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