MEDPLAN in the context of European project Beachmed-e.
From the protection of the coast to integrated coastal planning.

Roberto Bobbio

Polis Department, University of Genoa (IT)

Beachmed is a project of the Interreg IIIB European program that was developed in the years 2002-2004 and dedicated to investigate the phenomenon of coastal erosion in the Mediterranean and to evaluate the main problems of the protection of the coasts. In 2005 Beachmed-e was approved; this new project is addressed to find the instruments for an effective coastal defense, that include beach nourishment as well as administrative action and land management.
As part of Beachmed-e, MEDPLAN is expressly dedicated to connect the interventions that prevent coastal erosion and reintegrate beaches with a broader action of defense that must be extended inland and requires land planning instruments.
The aim of MEDPLAN is to set the conditions for a protective action but also to outline the main components of a planning process for the overall environmental protection and for the development of the coastal zone. The main items of the investigation are:

• the definition of the coastal risks and the construction of scenarios of the future;
• the identification of methods of analysis and intervention either for the maintenance of the beaches and for the protection of the coastal settlements;
• the definition of strategies and modalities for the management of the coastal zone;

all this in the general perspective of a sustainable development of the coastal zone.
The project MEDAPLAN has been launched on April 2006 and will be concluded in April 2008; the results of the first of the three phases into which it is divided are now under discussion and will be soon available in a dedicated publication.