The Living Coast is thrilled to have been chosen as 1 of only 5 sites from across Europe to receive funding as part of a new collaborative programme between the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe and the abrdn Charitable Foundation.

The new programme is a 3 year partnership between UNESCO and the abrdn Charitable Foundation, aiming to promote sustainability through research, education and innovative solutions to environmental and climate change challenges.  The programme is called “Promoting Sustainable Development Through UNESCO’s Programmes and Sites”.

The project that has been funded by this new scheme is a collaborative research project led by the University of Brighton to develop impact monitoring of The Aquifer Partnership’s Wild Park Rainscape Project.  The Wild Park Rainscape is being designed to naturally filter polluted water that runs from the surface of busy roads in the North East of Brighton, to enable clean water to safely pass through the earth into the region’s ground water aquifer.  The ground water aquifer is incredibly important to The Living Coast region as it provides all of the drinking water that we use here.  The innovative monitoring project that this funding will enable us to deliver will help us understand exactly what is happening to the water quality as the water moves through the rainscape scheme and eventually into the aquifer itself.

As part of the wider research project, the team will also be working with local schools to develop more learning resources around our water cycle and ground water aquifer, supporting The Aquifer Partnership’s SuDS in Schools project.

The overarching “Promoting Sustainable Development Through UNESCO’s Programmes and Sites” partnership aims to promote a more sustainable and climate neutral Europe by working through UNESCO sites to implement the Sustainable Development Goals, notably SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation), SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 14 (Life below Water) and SDG 15 (Life on land).

The “Promoting Sustainable Development Through UNESCO’s Programmes and Sites” partnership will work through a total of 15 sites in 3 years, and each year 5 sites will be endorsed by the partnerships’ advisory board.  UNESCO Biospheres, Geoparks and Natural World Heritage Sites are all eligible to participate.  The chosen sites will be able to work and learn collaboratively throughout the project as well as being supported by an interdisciplinary team from UNESCO’s Scientific Programmes including the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme, the Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP), and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO (IOC).

To find out more about the new partnership visit the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science and Culture in Europe’s website.