CO-LAND. Inclusive coastal landscape: activating green and blue infrastructure for sustainable development of the urban-land interface

CO-LAND stands for Inclusive Coastal Landscapes. Coastal landscapes across Europe are often characterized by overlaying and competing land uses. They are focus areas for settlements and infrastructure, especially road and train networks, and many industries and commercial zones that benefit from close access to harbors. Conversely, the tourism industry is also a major driving force with its own development dynamics and typical spatial patterns. All those economic potentials have attracted people to settle on the coast. This process is ongoing, leading to unsustainable development such as urban sprawl and irreversible consumption of soil and other natural resources. However, water-based recreation has various positive effects on human health and wellbeing – in relation to physical exercise and mental wellbeing, which is why on the one hand people love to visit the seaside on vacation while on the other hand poor or restricted access to waterscapes raises issues of social equity and spatial justice. The urban-land interface is also an important and often vulnerable habitat zone for flora and fauna which brings additional demands on such areas and also places them at risk from damage and degradation of the territory. This vulnerability is increased by the effects of climate change. Being a pole of human settlement since early times, coastal landscapes are also often extremely rich in cultural heritage and form part of our collective memory and identity. Their sustainable and integrated planning, design and management is crucial for the mental, social, physical and economic well-being of many European citizens. The overall goal of this project is to make higher education more relevant for society. We want to equip students not only with relevant knowledge, methods and tools, but also encourage them in building visionary and democratic mindsets. Planning and design decisions need to derive their legitimacy from a grounded understanding of local needs, values and goals. Emerging professionals must be trained to develop transformative planning competences. Next to envisioning alternative futures, they also need to be able to empower community members to take an active role in shaping those futures. This strategic partnership will therefore develop an international blended learning environment in which students from various planning disciplines can qualify themselves for addressing the specific spatial, social and environmental challenges of coastal landscapes in Europe with integrative, creative and inclusive methods. The consortium will develop and test an open online course during which learners will collaborate in interdisciplinary and virtual teams on local case studies. Along with this, relevant theories, methods and tools will be introduced in the form of online lectures and open educational resources. In this context, staff trainings will be conducted in order to enable all teachers to conduct student-centred and interactive lectures and seminars in a virtual classroom. The consortium will further organise four subsequent intensive study programmes in partnership with coastal communities in Romania, Estonia, Belgium and Italy. The CO-LAND method and case studies will be documented and disseminated to the European academic community and coastal municipalities. The core target groups are university staff and students in the fields of urban, landscape and regional planning, architecture and landscape architecture. The outputs of this project are: 1. A comprehensive set of ICT-based learning materials on the topic of integrated development of coastal landscapes: theories, methods, tools and case studies. A mixed-media approach will be applied combining digital repositories, synchronous online-seminar, video lectures and social media. Active integration and validation of existing resources from previous projects done at the national/European level and curricular integration to ensure their continuous use. 2. A guidance report for university staff on ‘How to teach integrated development of coastal areas’, in particular including evidence-based findings based on the evaluation of the teaching activities undertaken during the project. The report will further include an online tutorial on how to integrate ICT-tools for teaching and address the topic of transdisciplinary learning scenarios. 3. Broad competence development of staff and students (subject-specific, methodical, personal and transformative competences) 4. A new partnreship between universities and municipalities to ensure the sustainability of the activtities