Promoting Adaptation to Changing Coasts (PACCo)

The PACCo project is looking at how climate change threatens coastal areas and the early adaptation work that will be needed to deal with the threats.

The project focuses on two pilot sites: the lower Otter Valley, East Devon, England and the Saâne Valley in Normandy, France. The ecological functionality of these two estuarine locations are currently negatively impacted by historical human modifications with their current societal value threatened by climate change. Together they present an opportunity to create a model for sustainable management of coastal and estuarine areas that can be used by other projects and show how multiple problems can be addressed to create multiple benefits.

The initiative will recreate 100ha of inter-tidal and wetland habitat, enhance ecosystem services and bring socio-economic benefits to the two focus sites. This initiative is the first time that the benefits of proactive coastal intervention have been demonstrated on this scale at two sites in different countries. The intention is to use this increased profile to promote PACCo’s transferable model to an extensive stakeholder network to influence policy makers at national and EU level and enable climate change adaptation at more sites. Solutions will be collated as a ‘one stop shop’ model and by adopting this model benefits and savings can also be achieved at up to 70 other estuarine sites.

ECCA 2021 - Climate Adaptation solutions video - PACCo