Project

The Galician-North Portugal Cooperation Area (CA) shares the need to find sustainable solutions to preserve our ecosystem services. Climate neutrality is a challenge for the whole of Europe and for the CA. Most human activities involve the emission of greenhouse gases, while nature offers us carbon sinks such as marshes or seagrasses known as “Blue Carbon Ecosystems (BCEs). These ecosystems, in addition to very high biodiversity, offer other traditional services such as fishing or shellfish harvesting that, already today, are affected by climate change. Therefore, there is a joint need to identify threats, vulnerabilities, and climate risks faced by these coastal spaces and to establish coordinated actions for their preservation.

CAPTA aims to establish the basis for the development of joint policies and planning instruments to facilitate the achievement of climate neutrality and strengthen coastal ecosystem services, improving their resilience. CAPTA will allow the creation of a cross-border cooperation framework on these issues, making available homogeneous procedures and comparable information on climate risks, which will make it possible to define coordinated actions.

Specifically, new environmental indicators will be identified to serve as early warning systems in the future (Act 1); common methodologies will be defined for the analysis CO2 fluxes and blue carbon sequestration on the coast (Act 2); the main climate hazards and risks in the coastal zone in the CA will be identified (Act 3); support will be provided in the design of adaptation and mitigation measures to Climate Change through a participatory process (Act 4) and, the value of Cross-Border Cooperation will be disseminated as a support to a better adaptation and resilience to Climate Change, involving especially the young people (Act 6).

CAPTA is innovative in terms of its subject matter: considering the role of carbon sink that some coastal ecosystems in the Euroregion have historically played; and it is innovative in incorporating new technologies (satellites, drones, neural networks) as the basis for decision-making tools. The combined use of these technologies will define a common assessment procedure for salt marshes and seagrass beds on both sides of the border, which has not been previously done in the region.

Specific goal:

Promote climate change adaptation and disaster risk prevention, as well as, resilience, considering ecosystem-based approaches.

Program: Interreg VI-A Spain-Portugal Program (POCTEP) 2021-2027. The POCTEP programme promotes development and cross-border cooperation with FEDER funds along the Spain-Portugal border. The Interreg Spain-Portugal programme (POCTEP) 2021-2027 is the the EU´s largest transboundary cooperation programme, with a total budget of 427 million euros (ERDF for projects of 299 million). Link: https://2007-2020.poctep.eu/es

It has been prepared by the Member States of Spain and Portugal to address key challenges in the border area between both countries. Its drafting has taken into account the previous diagnosis of the current situation of the cooperation area, the strategic references that affect it, the principles of partnership and multilevel governance, and the results of the strategic environmental assessment.

Priority: P3 – To advance in the ecological transition and adaptation to climate change in the cross-border through cooperation as a tool to promote the green and the blue economy.

Total project cost: 1.677.762,25€

FEDER funds: 1.258.321.69€

Duration: 01/07/2023 a 31/12/2026