SCORE

SCORE is a €10m Horizon 2020-funded research project to increase climate resilience in European coastal cities lead by Dr Salem Gharbia of the School of Engineering & Design at IT Sligo.

The overall aim of SCORE is to design, develop, monitor and validate robust adaptation measures in coastal and low-lying areas to protect them from increasing climate and sea level risks, including coastal flooding and erosion, to enhance their overall long-term resilience.

SCORE outlines a co-creation strategy, developed via a network of 10 coastal city ‘living labs’ (CCLLs), to rapidly, equitably and sustainably enhance coastal city climate resilience through Ecosystem-Based Approach (EBAs) and sophisticated digital technologies. SCORE will establish an integrated coastal zone management framework for strengthening EBA and smart coastal city policies, creating European leadership in coastal city climate change adaptation in line with The Paris Agreement.

SCORE will involve citizen science in providing prototype coastal city early-warning systems and will enable smart, instant monitoring and control of climate resilience in European coastal cities through open, accessible spatial ‘digital twin’ tools.

SCORE will provide innovative platforms to empower stakeholders’ deployment of EBAs to increase climate resilience, business opportunities and financial sustainability of coastal cities.

The SCORE interdisciplinary team consists of 28 world-leading organisations from academia, local authorities, RPOs, and SMEs encompassing a wide range of skills including environmental science and policy, climate modelling, citizen and social science, data management, coastal management and engineering, security and technological aspects of smart sensing research.

SCORE is a four-year project and expected to start by July 2021.