The main objective of RESTORE4Cs is to provide tools and methodologies, applicable beyond the lifespan of the project, to assess pressures and impacts on the status of wetland ecosystems at various scales and relate these to the climate mitigation and adaptation potential, to biodiversity, and other ecosystem services provision, and associated co-benefits, combining social, ecologic, and economic perspectives (Fig.1). The project aims as well to predict restoration and management effects on GHG emission/removal, biodiversity, and other ecosystem services, while maintaining functional biodiversity through conservation and/or restoration, as well as to advice on the procedures for selection of priority sites (coastal wetlands) to be restored by including a climate change mitigation focus. In one sentence RESTORE4Cs aims at: Supporting the implementation of Climate and Biodiversity policies in the context of European Green Deal. To this end a digital platform that serves as Decision Support System (DSS) for the interested parts is under development supported by the data collection on the effectiveness of wetlands restoration and land use management; a European Community of Practice (Fig.2) for restoring wetlands is evolving to support the EU Policies, namely the EU Nature Restoration Law; and models and assessment tools are being improved and expanded to broader geographical contexts to support stakeholders engagement and upscaling of results. The steps towards upper scales are supported by six case pilots (Fig.3) where coastal wetlands ecosystems processes including C-storage and current and potential GHG profile (particularly, CO2, CH4 and N2O, and ancillary ecological indicators) are being analysed comparing well-preserved versus altered (and type of alteration) versus restored (and type of restoration measures).
