The ecohydrological approach for Integrated Vulnerable Coastal Zone Resilience in arid regions

Coastal wetland ecosystems are complex environments subject to physical factors and multiple yield supplies. The climate change impacts are strongly visible in those low-lying areas, in close relationships with the decrease of the continental water and sediment supply, marine storms and submersion. To understand the interactions between the coastal components we adopt the ecohydrology approach for a lagoon ecosystem in North Africa. The ecohydrology approach is based on as a compeling of well-experimented data as the sediment dynamics, the hydrology of the watershed basin and the coastal aquifer, and the biodiversity and the remote sensing observations in relation with the socioeconomic activities. The ecohydrology concept is focused in our research on the coastal ‘hot spot’ areas on the deltaic-lagoon and sandy barrier areas identified as very highly vulnerable to the sea level rise and marine disasters. The main goal is to establish a shared database and an innovative Nature Based Solution with the regional communities to enhance the coastal resilience and to better explore the aquatic resource for a sustainable blue economy, in the context of rapid environmental changes in the Mediterranean arid-regions, driven by both climate change and anthropogenic negative impacts on natural landscapes.