CFPs: Coastal Resilience to Climate Change

Objectives

• The objective of this call for proposals is to support the development of services that leverage space technology to address the challenges posed by climate change to coastal cities, rural coastal regions, and ports. These services should focus on tackling the increasing risks associated with climate change, with the ultimate goal of enhancing coastal resilience and ensuring the sustainability of economic activities in these vulnerable regions. The initial areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Monitoring and Early Warning Systems
    • Monitoring and Early Warning Systems: Environmental changes can be monitored to provide early warnings for extreme weather events, such as storms, floods, and heatwaves. This helps in timely evacuation and preparation, reducing the impact on infrastructure and communities.
    • Monitoring Coastal Erosion and Sea-Level Rise: Tracking coastal erosion and sea level rise provides critical information for planning and implementing coastal defences. This is essential for protecting infrastructure and habitats in coastal areas.
  • Water and Ecosystem Management
    • Water Management: Managing water resources by monitoring rainfall patterns, river flows, and drought conditions is crucial for ensuring the availability of fresh water in coastal and rural areas.
    • Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services: Monitoring changes in biodiversity and ecosystem services helps protect and manage natural habitats. This includes tracking the health of coastal ecosystems.
  • Urban and Infrastructure Planning
    • Urban Planning and Infrastructure: Accurate geospatial information supports urban planning by helping design resilient infrastructure that can withstand climate impacts, such as flooding and heatwaves.
    • Adapting Coastal Agriculture: implementing services to protect crops from salinity intrusion, flooding, coastal erosion, extreme weather events, and changes in precipitation patterns. These services include farming systems with improved drainage systems to mitigate flooding and saltwater intrusion, efficient irrigation systems to optimise water availability, crop diversification to incorporate a variety of crops with different tolerance levels to climate variability, and coastal defences such as seawalls and mangroves to reduce erosion and flooding.
  • Disaster Response and Recovery
    • Disaster Response and Recovery: Reliable communication during and after disasters ensures that emergency services can coordinate effectively. This is particularly important in remote and rural coastal areas where terrestrial communication infrastructure may be limited.
    • Nature-Based Solutions (NBS): Traditional measures to mitigate climate change primarily involved building infrastructure and heavy engineering. The current approach focuses on developing NBS. Implementing NBS, such as mangrove restoration, can enhance coastal resilience and provide multiple ecosystem services.
  • Port Solutions
    • Port Solutions: Services may involve management systems that recommend strategies such as raising the height of quays and docks, installing advanced drainage systems, and developing climate adaptation plans that include monitoring and early warning systems for extreme weather events.
  • Tourism and Economic Activities
    • Tourism: Coastal regions are popular tourist destinations, and climate change poses significant risks to this sector. Rising sea levels, coastal erosion, and extreme weather events can damage tourism infrastructure, such as hotels, resorts, and recreational facilities. Additionally, changes in temperature and precipitation patterns can affect the attractiveness of these destinations. Implementing climate adaptation strategies, such as building resilient infrastructure and promoting sustainable tourism practices, can help mitigate these impacts and ensure the long-term viability of the tourism industry.
  • Insurance
    • Insurance: Insurance is vital for climate adaptation and resilience, especially in coastal areas prone to extreme weather. It provides financial protection against economic losses from storms, flooding, and erosion. Using satellite data, insurers can better assess risks and manage claims, offering tailored products for coastal communities. This technology helps monitor natural disasters, assess damage, and provide accurate payouts, enhancing the resilience of these regions to climate change and enabling faster recovery from extreme events.
  • Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)
    • CRSD: The CSRD highlights the need for companies to report physical risks and opportunities related to climate change, especially in coastal areas prone to sea-level rise, erosion, and extreme weather. Therefore, services that help companies to disclose the impacts on their assets and operations and outline strategies for resilience are needed. Key requirements include Impact, Risks, Opportunity (IRO)-1, and Environment (E1)-2—4, E1-9. The 2021 EU Adaptation Strategy stresses systemic approaches and digital technologies to reduce climate risks, while the EU Floods Directive and Maritime Spatial Planning Directive mandate flood risk management and sustainable coastal area management.

What they offer?

• They offer funding and support to companies, both for business case assessment and for the development of new, space-based services. Their offer includes:
  • zero-equity funding
  • technical and commercial guidance
  • access to their network and partners
  • ESA brand credibility

Types of Activities

• This Call for Proposal covers two types of activities:
  • Feasibility Studies which provide the preparatory framework to identify, analyse and define new potentially sustainable services. The applications and/or services covered by the proposed Feasibility Studies must:
    • Be customer – and user-driven: proposals should demonstrate a clear understanding of user needs and present a strong potential for sustainability.
    • Leverage integrated space assets: propose a service demonstrating the benefits of the utilisation of integrated space assets.
    • Include a plan to test business hypotheses: a plan should be included that details how the user desirability, technical feasibility, and commercial viability of the service will be tested.
    • Target marketed readiness: Aim to evolve the targeted applications and services to marketability and operational roll-out, potentially through a Demonstration Project after successful completion of the Feasibility Study
  • Demonstration Projects dedicated to the implementation and demonstration of preoperational services.
    • The applications and/or services covered by the proposed Demonstration Projects must:
      • Be customer- and user-driven: Active user involvement is essential throughout the project, including their participation in defining requirements, validating results, and contributing to the pilot activities.
      • Showcase the value of space assets: Proposals must clearly demonstrate how the utilisation of space technologies provides a distinct advantage, with a strong potential for long-term sustainability.
      • Deliver measurable socio-economic benefits: The project should quantify its impact, highlighting improvements in efficiency, sustainability, or other key outcomes that align with user and societal needs.
      • Ensure user participation: Representatives from the target user communities must actively engage in the project, including participation in the pilot phases to ensure alignment with their requirements and expectations.

Eligibility Criteria

• The Agency will admit for evaluation only (Outline and Full) proposals from a bidding team composed of a company and/or organisations (be it Prime or Subcontractor) residing in any of those states that subscribe to the Programme under which you wish you submit your proposal:
  • for the ARTES 4.0 BASS Generic Programme Line: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
  • for the ARTES 4.0 Space for 5G/6G and Sustainable Connectivity Strategic Programme Line: Austria, Belgium, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Canada
  • for the ARTES 4.0 Space Systems for Safety and Security (4S) Strategic Programme Line: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Canada.

For more information, visit ESA.