Periodic Reporting for period 3 - COASTAL (Collaborative lAnd Sea inTegration pLatform)
Reporting period: 2021-05-01 to 2022-10-31
- engage local and regional business entrepreneurs, administrations, stakeholders, and scientific experts in a multi-actor process for knowledge exchange
- quantify the physical, socio-economic and environmental coastal-rural interactions in the six representative case studies, and make this knowledge applicable for holistic policy support
- derive practical business road maps and policy actions aimed at improving coastal-rural synergies and development
- develop, validate and apply generic, qualitative and quantitative tools for evaluating and comparing business and policy solutions
- deliver scenarios to explore the driving conditions and transition pathways that explore barriers and motivators for coastal and rural development, transferable to other regions of Europe
- disseminate and exploit the project outcomes to the local, regional, national, and EU level.
Some important conclusions and recommendations can be drawn from the project outcomes and feedback collected from the final project event:
- The combination of multi-actor analysis with System Thinking and systems modelling is a powerful approach for developing holistic, evidence-based business road maps and policy guidelines.
- Integrating qualitative with quantitative data, tools and expertise is a challenge. Here again Systems Thinking and SD modelling can be useful as framework for analysis.
- Future projects with a similar ambition and methodology may benefit from centralized support for modelling, with more emphasis on spatial data and spatial modelling.
- Improved, holistic understanding of the social-economic and environmental land-sea interactions, and their influence on the mid- and long-term impact on policy interventions and business decisions.
- The creation of a toolbox of qualitative and quantitative instruments for supporting sustainable regional development in coastal and rural regions, including tutorial examples and best practices.
- A broad set of representative and evidence-based business road maps and policy recommendations, which have been shock tested for exogenous and uncertain factors (climate change, economic crisis, land use change, …).
- Capacity building and training of local and regional networks of stakeholders, economic operators, researchers and policy representatives in holistic policy development.
COASTAL was concluded with a 3-day final event in Ostend, consisting of an exhibition/network event for the project partners, a scientific conference, and field trips. A general, very positive observation was the commitment expressed by all project partners to continue and apply the COASTAL approach in their work and activities, despite of the challenging trajectory followed to familiarize themselves with the systems thinking methodology. Phrased otherwise: the project has changed their way of thinking and will have an impact on their work. The final conference was also used to promote the new Knowledge Exchange Platform or KEP (https://coastal-xchange.eu) showcase functionalities and clarify the collaboration model behind the KEP.