The kick-off meeting of the project Triton, co-funded by the Interreg V-A Greece-Italy Programme 2014-2020, was held on 20th and 21st September in Bari at the premises of the Regional Agency for Technology and Innovation (ARTI). Puglia Region is the lead beneficiary of this project in cooperation with the Italian Euro-Mediterranean Center for Climate Change and three Greek partners, the Region of Western Greece, the Network of European Cities for Sustainable Development, and the University of Patras.
Triton project, acronym of “Development of management Tools and directives for immediate protection of biodiversity in coastal areas affected by sea erosion and establishment of appropriate environmental control systems”, has a total budget of € 858.000,00 and is financed under the Priority Axis 2 Integrated Environmental Management and focuses on the necessity to reduce the consequences of coastal erosion and to establish appropriate environmental control systems.
Thanks to Triton project, a model of integrated coastal zone management between Puglia and Western Greece will be developed in order to establish decision support tools for protection of coastal areas and reduce the consequences of coastal erosion due to natural causes, such as stormy winds, high waves and strong currents, and human induced causes such as urban expansion, touristic development and infrastructures.
Main results of the project will be a toolkit of policy instruments for policy makers, a web-based participatory GIS/SIT tool empowering inhabitants and visitors to communicate effectively with the local and regional authorities, a set of shared indicators and decision support tools for the operational mapping and monitoring of coastal erosion risk, a draft of Greece and Italy cross-border cooperation legislation for the related matters of coastal zone management, a pilot observatory in the area of intervention to create a feasibly shared mode of data collection and monitoring, an international training course for staff of stakeholders and professional associations, a position paper towards the common operative plan adoption for coastal zone management at the Adriatic-Ionian level.