Green Tides: Resilience Conversations A podcast on coastal resilience

What does coastal resilience actually mean? And why does it shape the future of every coastline on Earth?

In this opening episode of Green Tides, we trace how coastal resilience moved from a niche term to a global priority, from the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and Agenda 2030 to the UN Ocean Decade. Then we get concrete, exploring how sea-level rise, coastal erosion, pollution and the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) are reshaping coastal environments and the communities that depend on them.

You’ll come away understanding why protecting the coast is not about freezing it in time, but about helping coastal ecosystems and societies adapt, resist and recover under change.

Featuring Prof. Nadia Pinardi, Director of the Decade Collaborative Centre for Coastal Resilience (DCC-CR) and oceanographer; Prof. Elena Fabbri, Marine Physiologist and Head of the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, University of Bologna; and Prof. Greta Tellarini, Full Professor of Navigation and Transport Law, Department of Law, University of Bologna.

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How can education protect the future of our coasts?

We unpack why ocean literacy is a core pillar of coastal resilience for scientists, citizens, communities, policymakers, and young professionals facing climate and ocean challenges firsthand.

We follow learners from Brazil to Nigeria, the Philippines and beyond through DCC-CR programmes such as Co-Growth, COMPASS and the OceanTeacher Global Academy, seeing how training turns knowledge into action, from climate adaptation and marine conservation to remote sensing, water-quality monitoring and community-based solutions.

Featuring Prof. Villy Kourafalou, Scientific Director of the DCC-CR; Isadora Timbó, coastal-resilience and climate-adaptation project lead at GITEC and member of the Women’s League for the Ocean; Abe Woo, Early Career Ocean Professional (ECOP); and Esther Kadiene, Lecturer in marine and environmental biology at Delta State University, Abraka (Nigeria).

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What if we could test the impact of a storm before it ever reaches the coast?

We step inside the Digital Twin of the Ocean: a living, virtual replica of the real ocean, continuously updated with satellite data, coastal sensors, ocean models and artificial intelligence.

We explore how digital twins, AI, high-performance computing and forecasting systems help scientists and decision-makers anticipate coastal flooding, erosion, wave overtopping and other climate-related hazards, and what it takes, behind the scenes, to make those simulations reliable and secure.

Featuring Dott. Giovanni Coppini, scientist at CMCC (Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change), Megi Hoxhaj, telecommunications engineer and technical lead at CMCC, and Salvatore Causio, Coastal Ocean Modeler at CMCC.

What does coastal resilience look like for island communities living on the front line of climate change?

In this episode of Green Tides, we travel from the Caribbean to the Western Pacific to see how island states face rising seas, stronger storms, coastal erosion, coral reef degradation and rapid urbanisation, often all at once, in what scientists call multi-hazard systems.

We dig into why these communities are seen as early indicators of global change, and why resilience is about environmental justice, access to knowledge, economic stability and who has the resources to adapt.

Featuring Lorna Inniss, UN Ocean Decade expert on the Caribbean coastal region; and Wenxi Zhu, UN Ocean Decade expert on the Western Pacific coastal region.

How do we turn coastal science into real-world action?

In this final episode of Green Tides, we investigate how co-design, stakeholder engagement and the Partner Alliance Network (PAN) connect scientists, engineers, policymakers, institutions and communities working toward more resilient coastal futures.

Looking at two leading European research institutes, we reveal how predictive services, open-source models, capacity building and international collaboration make coastal resilience more usable, accessible and actionable on the ground.

Featuring Joanna Staneva, HEREON‘s head of department; and Loreta Cornacchia, researcher at Deltares.