Morphological impacts and coastal risks induced by extreme storm events (MICORE)

The MICORE project (Morphological Impacts and COastal Risks induced by Extreme storm events) was a European initiative comprising 16 different research, commercial and government institutions across nine countries. The overall aims of the project were to set-up and demonstrate an online Early Warning System (EWS) for the reliable prediction of morphological impacts due to marine storm events in support of civil protection mitigation strategies.

The project focused on nine unique and morphologically diverse sites: Lido di Dante (Italy), Praya de Faro (Portugal), La Victoria Campesoto (Portugal), Lido of Sete (France), Sefton Coast (UK), Egmond Beach (Netherlands), Mariakerke beach (Belgium), Kamchia beach (Bulgaria). At all sites a number of individual work phases were conducted in order to reach the end goal of setting up a prototype EWS for coastal storm risk. These phases included:

1. a review of historical coastal storm events;
2. field monitoring of storm impacts that occurred throughout the project;
3. validating and testing a new as well as existing coastal storm models using the field data results;
4. the development of a prototype EWS;
5. linking early warnings to civil protection protocols.

Given that coastal storm predictions are typically provided up to a three-day prediction window, the MICORE project specifically related to short-term emergency response rather than on longer-term strategic objectives. As such it is a clear example of a practice-oriented research programme, providing practical outcomes for coastal management that are useful and applicable to end-users.