Four papers with results from the project were recently published

The EVREST team is happy to anounce that four journal publications, deriving from the project, were recently out!

Project results of “Recurso à dança criativa e storytelling para a comunicação de ciência” were presented in the 6º Congresso SciCom PT|2018 that was held in Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo, Portugal, between 10 and 12 October 2018. The poster can be found here.

The conference gathered science communicators mostly from Portugal, but also from Spain and Brazil. The book of abstracts can be found here.
The event was widely covered by photos (link)
and broadcasted on the regional news (link)

Open Lecture by Professor Gerd Masselink from the University of Plymouth, scientific consultant of the EVREST project:

“Variability in the north-east Atlantic wave climate and its influence on annual-to-decadal beach dynamics”

The lecture is organised in the framework of the MSc program ‘Marine and Coastal Systems’ of the University of Algarve and will take place on Thursday, September 27, 2018, 14.00-15.00, at the Pedagogical Complex, Amphitheater A, Ualg Campus of Gambelas, Faro

Project results regarding ‘Ecosystem processes and service provision in salt marshes facing varying sediment availability‘ were presented in the 9th Symposium on the Iberian Atlantic Margin that was held in in Coimbra between 4 and 7 of September.

EVREST at the Children and Environment Week of Tavira- Task 6.3. Dissemination to the general public

During the Children and Environment Week of Tavira (4-8 June 2018) more than 200 children (kindergarten and primary school) participated in activities related to dune formation and shoreline protection (dunes and saltmarsh).

EVREST Science Club on Task 6.3. Dissemination to the general public

Field trip to Barril beach

In June the students involved in the EVREST Science Club participated in a field trip to the Barril beach (Tavira island) to observe and identify the different habitats (salt marsh and dune system, forest), sediment (mud and sand) and fauna (e.g. Afruca tangeri, Erodius sp.) and flora (e.g. Spartina marítima, Elymus farctus). With this activity, students were able to consolidate the knowledge acquired during the classroom hands-on activities. Overall, they were very interested in the distinct subjects covered and they could answer all the core topic questions.

EVREST Science Club on Task 6.3. Dissemination to the general public

The EVREST Science Club has already started at several schools of Tavira Municipality, targeting students of the 4th grade.
Along three sessions consisting of two hands-on activities in the classroom and one fieldtrip, students will be able to better understand Ria Formosa’s barrier islands system, from the sediment to the habitat concept.
The first and ongoing session, called “Grão a Grão, enche-se a Praia do Barril!” focus on the sediment composition of the saltmarsh and the dune system, and includes a brief characterization of the fauna and flora.
The second theorical-practical session “Duna à vista!” will soon start; its main theme will be dunes formation and their role on shoreline protection (together with the saltmarsh).

I am Marine Fouin, a french engineering student in agronomy at the ENSAIA, in Nancy, France. As I have always been fascinated by coastal environments I took advantage of the possibility I had to do an internship abroad within my degree to come here, in CIMA (University of Algarve). I joined the EVREST project and my work consists in rating the evolution of the salt marshes morphology inside the Ria Formosa coastal lagoon. Using aerial photographs of the last 60 years we will try to get a clear overview of how the area has been evolving during this timelapse through GIS analysis.

My name is Miguel Amado and I’m currently doing my Master thesis entitle “Salt marsh response to changing hydrodynamics: the case of Ancão Inlet migration (Ria Formosa coastal lagoon)” in the University of Algarve, included in the EVREST project . Using a 60 year timeseries of aerial photographs and orthophotos we intend to study recent evolution of salt marsh areas neighbouring the tidal inlet, the influence of inlet natural migrating stages and human relocations to the surrounding salt marsh vegetation and the development of salt marsh ecological resilience thresholds regarding the variability of the forcing mechanisms that provoke inlet changes.

I have a degree on Marine Sciences and I am finishing the Marine and Coastal Systems Master, both on Universidade do Algarve.

My name is Verónica Belchior and i joined the EVREST team to work on the dissemination of the project’s results and findings. I have a bachelor degree in Biology by the University of Porto and my passion always has been to communicate science to the general public. The main goal of my work is to interact with students from different primary schools of Tavira municipality and give them the tools to become true science investigators of Ria Formosa, empowering the discovery of this unique ecosystem.

My name is Fábio Madeira and I’m about to finish my EVREST grant on Instituto D. Luiz, Lisbon. I’ve been working on relative sea level variability of the Algarve, using data from Lagos tidal gauge. This entails a thorough processing and analysis of existing datasets as well as collection of data with portable instrumentation along the south coast. I have a degree on Marine Sciences and a MSc on Renewable Energy and Energy management both at the Universidade do Algarve. I made an internship in Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil, in Lisbon, an intensive course on programming with Python and an internship of professional web programming.

Download Fabio’s Report on the relative sea level variability of the Algarve (pdf | in Portuguese)

An EVREST meeting devoted to task 2.2 “Analysis of relative sea-level variations” took place in Lisbon, on November 7^th, 2017. The meeting was hosted by Carlos Antunes in the Department of Geographic Engineering, Geophysics and Energy, and the participants were Ana Matias, Rui Taborda and Fábio Madeira.
The meeting was focused on the tidal gauge datasets processing and corrections. This laborious task has been going on for over a year and was the main job of the EVREST grant holder Fábio Madeira. The results of the first two fieldwork campaigns were presented, with preliminary results pointing to a need of additional measurements.

News article by Ana Matias: ‘Residentes da praia de Faro sabem que correm riscos mas não arredam pé/The residents of praia de Faro know they are at risk but refuse to move’ (in portuguese).
Read the article.
The article is based on a study of Rita Domingues from research was performed within the RISC-KIT project.

The EVREST team is participating to the European Researchers Night (Noite Europeia dos Investigadores) 2017, at the Centro Ciência Viva de Tavira on Friday, September 29th, with the following activities:

• 10.00-13.00: Presentation of the EVREST project (posters, presentation, discussions)
• 10.00-12.00: Activities with primary school students “The sea moving the sand” (O mar enrola na areia): The activities are designed to familiarise students with the sediment transport processes in beaches. The activity is conceived and interpreted by Ana Matias from Center of Marine Environmental Research (CIMA) of the University of Algarve.
• 21.00-22.00: Café com Ciência “Climate Changes: Impact in Marine Life and Coastal Zones” (Alterações Climáticas: Impacto no Meio Marinho e Zonas Costeiras) [poster in pdf]. Participating investigators: Óscar Ferreira (FCT/CIMA/UALG), Susana Costas (CIMA), Pedro Guerreiro (CCMAR) e João Silva (CCMAR).

My name is Emily ROBBINS, I am a French student who is currently attending a Master’s degree program at the European Institute for Marine Studies (IUEM) in Brest, France. As part of my university course, and in order to get professional experience, I’m doing an internship in CIMA – University of Algarve. My work is part of EVREST project and I’m learning more about barrier island dynamics, salt marsh development, ecogeomorphology of low-gradient environments, supervised/unsupervised classification in ArcGIS, and grain-size analysis, amongst others.

The EVREST project participated in the annual meeting of the Portuguese science and technology community Ciências 2017, held at the Centro de Congressos de Lisboa, on Monday, July 3rd.

Mote information on the meeting can be found here and the program (in Portuguese) can be found here.

Ana Matias, the project coordinator, talks on '90 Seconds of Science' (90 segundos de ciência) about the island of Culatra and the EVREST project.

The interview will broadcast on Thursday 30/03/2017 at 18.50 and on Friday 31/03/2017 at 10.50.

Title: "How dune plants translate sea erosion: A case study along the Portuguese coast"

Mónica Martins, Instituto de Geografia e Ordenamento do Território da Universidade de Lisboa

February 17th, 2017, 9.00a.m., Room 3.24, Building 8, University of Algarve, Campus of Gambelas

Presentation Title: "Construction and destruction of the islands in Ria Formosa"

Speakers: Ana Matias and Rita Carrasco

Date: 24-11-2016, 9:15 to 10:15

Escola Secundária Dr. Jorge Augusto Correia, Rua Luís de Camões 8800-415 Tavira