Category: Publications

Our partners from Università Politecnica delle Marche have just published a comprehensive review on wave–current interactions within microtidal systems in Coastal Engineering.

The study addresses key processes directly connected with EcoC2S objectives: wave blocking by opposing river currents, infragravity wave propagation, and compound flooding dynamics at river mouths—providing both theoretical foundations and field observations from Mediterranean and global case studies. The Misa River (Italy) serves as a natural-scale laboratory to validate these theories through long-term monitoring data.

What they found: Compound flooding at river mouths depends critically on the synchronicity between river discharge and sea level variations. When flood events coincide with high sea levels (storm surge or sea level rise), flood extent can increase significantly, highlighting the need for integrated flood risk assessment frameworks.

🔗 Open access: https://lnkd.in/euT_wn6p

Congratulations to Maurizio Brocchini, Francesco Marini, and Agnese Baldoni!

We are pleased to share a brief overview of the first year of EcoC2S, as presented in our first project bulletin. Since the project officially started in April 2025, these initial months have focused on building a strong scientific and stakeholder foundation to support our long-term objectives.

EcoC2S aims to enhance the resilience of coastal regions and communities to flood risk through the co-development of a holistic flood risk assessment framework. A core ambition of the project is to better quantify the role of natural systems and blue–green infrastructure in flood protection, bridging scientific knowledge with decision-making needs.

During this first year, several important milestones have been achieved:

– In April 2025, EcoC2S took part in the Water4All 2023 Kick-off Meeting in Montpellier, which brought together funded projects to align expectations, objectives, and pathways for collaboration across Europe.
– In November 2025, we held the first Stakeholders Advisory Board (SAB) meeting, gathering experts and representatives from key institutions in flood risk management, ecosystem services, and climate resilience. This initial meeting focused on expert perceptions of how flood risk assessments are understood by the public, helping to better frame the societal dimension of EcoC2S research.

EcoC2S actively contributes to the Water4All Knowledge Hub on Aquatic Ecosystems (2025–2028), which promotes cross-project collaboration and the joint dissemination of results through policy briefs, reports, and position papers. Scientific coordination of this Hub involves EcoC2S researchers alongside international partners, and the first impact session was held in April 2025.

Project members have also shared early results and methodological advances at several international scientific events, including JIA 2025, RCEM 2025, the SRA-Europe Iberian Chapter Annual Meeting, and the International School of Hydraulics.

From a scientific perspective, one of the key advances of this first phase has been the development of a new index-based methodology for compound flood assessment, created jointly with colleagues from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. This approach enables the identification of areas with high potential for compound flooding along the Mediterranean coast and has been published in Communications Earth & Environment in 2025.
https://lnkd.in/eNgu22Vk

Looking ahead, the next year will focus on deepening stakeholder engagement and advancing on-site and collaborative activities. Planned milestones include the second Stakeholders Advisory Board meeting in the first semester of 2026 and stakeholder-oriented field activities and a partner meeting in Italy in late May 2026.

We look forward to sharing further progress as EcoC2S continues to develop integrated, science-based tools to support flood risk management and climate resilience across Europe.

Full document available here:
1766400033924

Members of the EcoC2S team at the University of Granada (UGR), together with researchers of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), have developed a method to detect and classify areas at high risk of compound flooding—flooding caused by the combined effects of heavy rainfall, river overflow, and coastal events such as storms and waves.

While the EU Floods Directive provides a common framework for flood risk management, current assessments often focus on single-source events, overlooking the combined risks of compound flooding. The new method efficiently identifies Areas of Potential Significant Flood Risk (APSFR) by considering the intensity, likelihood, and interactions of multiple hazards. Analyzing 1,600 km of the Spanish Mediterranean coastline, the study identified three particularly vulnerable regions: central Valencia, northern Catalonia, and western Andalusia. Of the 214 APSFRs assessed, 11% fall into the highest risk category.

Classification of the Spanish Mediterranean coast based on compound flood potential, with the three highest-risk areas outlined in black

Del-Rosal-Salido, J., Bermúdez, M., Ortega-Sánchez, M. et al. A composite index framework for compound flood risk assessment. Communications Earth & Environment 6, 342 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02331-z