Upscaling coastal nature-based solutions (NbSs), from the river to sea scale, essential to the ultimate success of restoration, requires larger investments, greater socio-economic engagement and a transformative shift in governance. Consequently, the ability to catalyze blended finance from public and private investors through business model innovation and accessibly written long-range business plans is imperative. This research proposes a methodology to systematically co-design, through iterative stakeholder engagement, suitable and effective business models for upscaling NbSs coastal restoration, as well as a framework to develop business plans adaptable to different investors needs and financial criteria. This method was tested and validated in a saltmarsh restoration project coordinated by public agencies in the Venice Lagoon. It delivered an advanced business model canvas, carefully assessed through a stakeholder questionnaire and a related business case centered on ecotourism complemented by a willingness-to-pay analysis. The resulting business plan lays out the governance, management, business and financial strategies for successful restoration, addressing specific interconnected issues, improving five main ecosystem services and delivering NbS multifunctional environmental, economic, social and cultural benefits. The methodology has proven to be applicable beyond the Venice Lagoon saltmarsh case and types of restoration projects.

This deliverable presents the generation of EUNIS habitat maps for Europe as a whole and for each of the pilot areas in REST-COAST. Subsequently, it presents the assignment of semi-quantitative scores for the contribution of each EUNIS (sub)habitat to the five key ecosystem services applying the rank scale 0 (none), 1 (very low contribution), 2 (low contribution), 3 (medium contribution), 4 (high contribution) to 5 (very high contribution). It also describes the assignment of the IUCN Red List of Habitats to each of the depicted EUNIS (sub)habitats in the pilot areas. And finally, to assess coastal system behaviour and restoration effects on ecosystem services and biodiversity gains under climate change, a homogenised score card methodology is presented to overcome the problem of comparing minor changes (some percents) with major changes (tens of percents) in the total scores for ESS or BDV in each pilot area.

Coastal ecosystems are becoming less resilient under climate (e.g., sea-level rise, warming, acidification) and human (e.g., urbanization, coastal hardening, and river regulation) pressures, forcing local communities to face increasing risk levels. This lack of resilience is linked to an adaptation deficit that can be recovered through restoration. Yet, restoration faces barriers related to governance, funding, technical practice, and social context. To overcome such barriers, the REST-COAST project has developed a framework that reckons with coastal restoration platforms and restoration agreements, supported by “enablers” that support the upscaling and implementation of restoration projects. The proposed agreements and platforms can effectively overcome barriers by embedding governance, technical, financial, and social enablers into the agreements among stakeholders. Tailored, place-based approaches foster collaboration, long-term adaptive management, and the scaling of restoration to address accelerating climate-driven risks. The proposed agreements build on hands-on restoration lessons, offering transferable insights for global coastal resilience.

In this study, the issue of noise arising from the activities of large construction sites is analysed. The problem is particularly significant when the sites are close to protected natural areas or to residential areas and also when the duration of the construction works is very large. The case of the construction of a mobile barrier system, known as the MoSE, for the safeguard of the city of Venice from intruding tidal waters, is here reported. Since the early beginning of the construction activities, in April 2005, noise emission monitoring was conducted in order to evaluate possible effects on the presence of bird communities in the surrounding areas and also to evaluate the noise disturbance in some of the residential buildings close to the sites. During the monitoring activity, it was possible to measure the noise levels, the noise spectra and spectrograms in real-time and occasionally even the audio signal for particular activities was recorded. The analysis of data collected in different periods defined the pile driving and some other activities as the most significant from the standpoint of noise emission, therefore the possibility to mitigate their emission was investigated.

Coastal ecosystems are becoming less resilient under climate (e.g. sea-level rise, warming, acidification) and human (e.g. urbanization, coastal rigidization an driver regulation) pressures, forcing local communities to face increasing risk level. This lack of resilience is linked to an adaptation deficit that can be recovered through restoration. Yet, restoration faces barriers related to governance, funding, technical practice, and social context. To overcome such barriers the REST-COAST project has developed a framework that reckons with coastal restoration platforms and restoration contracts, supported by “enablers” that support the upscaling and implementation of restoration projects. The proposed contracts and platforms can effectively overcome barriers by embedding governance, technical, financial, and social enablers into the agreements among stakeholders. Tailored, place-based approaches foster collaboration, long-term adaptive management, and scaling of restoration to address accelerating climate driven risks. The obtained hands-on restoration lessons offer transferable insights for global coastal resilience.

Coastal regions provide some of the most productive and biodiverse environments with an important and often underappreciated carbon storage potential. At the same time, they are among the areas of highest population density, natural assets and cultural heritage in the world, yet are experiencing significant social, economic and environmental challenges, exacerbated by climate change and human pressures.The REST-COAST project (Large scale RESToration of COASTal ecosystems through rivers to sea connectivity) will demonstrate to what extent upscaled coastal restoration can provide a low-carbon adaptation, reducing risks and providing gains in biodiversity for vulnerable coastal ecosystems, such as wetlands or sea grass beds. By overcoming present technical, economic, governance and social barriers to restoration upscaling, REST-COAST will develop the large scale river-coast connectivity and increase the nearshore accommodation space for the resilient delivery of coastal ecosystem services (ESs). The selected ESs (risk reduction, environmental quality and fish provisioning) touch urgent coastal problems such as the erosion/flooding during recent storms or the accelerating coastal habitat degradation that seriously affects fisheries and aquaculture. Combining new techniques, risk assessments, innovative financial/governance arrangements and homogeneous metrics for ESs and biodiversity, REST-COAST will develop a systemic approach to coastal restoration based on a scalable coastal adaptation plan.