Date: June 18, 2020

Place:  Zoom Business, Eleftheroupolis - Greece

Description of the event: Coastal zones across the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean are facing ever-increasing natural and anthropogenic disturbances, including the occurrence of extreme events in the form of intense and more frequent storms, sea level rise, coastal erosion and over-exploitation of their resources among others. Such challenges raise serious concerns for coastal Local and Regional Authorities, as they are associated to socio-economic impacts, economic losses and ecological damages, especially of valuable coastal habitats and environmental degradation. HERMES aims to develop a unified and harmonized framework for coastal erosion mitigation and beach restoration covering the four partner countries (Albania, Cyprus, Greece and Bulgaria) through the implementation of a coherent ensemble of studies, the sharing of already developed technical tools and the design of joint policy instruments. This is imperative since available evidence indicate that erosion is a problem for almost 30% of the coasts in Greece, 38% in Cyprus while in Bulgaria it reaches almost 71% ; in Albania shoreline erosion is particularly acute in the central and northern part of its 420 km long coast. In parallel, in Eastern Mediterranean recent scenarios predict a sea level rise up to 1 m until the end of current century. In this context, the HERMES International Conference will address issues related to: • Coastal erosion: Current state, trends and perspectives • Policies and Tools supporting the adaptation and resilience of Coastal Municipalities to Coastal Erosion and Sea Level Rise • ICZM Protocol Implementation by Municipal and Regional Authorities • Scientific Tools to Monitor Coastal Zone Processes • Engineering Solutions Tackling Coastal Zone Challenges • Touristic Development under Coastal Erosion and Climate Change Risks • Financial Instruments related to Coastal Zone Management Working language: English. Please submit your abstract at hermes.bmp@gmail.com using the instructions given in the template (available upon request) until 10 June 2020.

Type: Open

• Website: https://www.dimospaggaiou.gr