For 50 years, the Conservatoire du littoral has played a central role in the protection and sustainable management of French coastal natural areas.
As a result, it has quickly faced issues related to coastal zone management and coastal risks, beyond its role in protecting landscapes and natural and cultural heritage. Since the mid-2000s, in response to recurring erosion and marine submersion events, the Conservatoire du littoral conducted a series of studies assessing the potential impacts on its properties, taking into account the effects of climate change. From 2010 onward, it developed an approach integrating land-use planning with the implementation of flexible management of the coastal zone. Its efforts have deliberately aimed to encourage a more dynamic and evolving vision of the coastline, based on anticipation and gradual adaptation, moving away from the still too common fixed, rigid conceptions.
Within this framework, the INTERREG Licco (2011-2014) and Life Adapto (2017-2022) projects marked a decisive step. Through large-scale experimentation on a total of 15 pilot sites, they demonstrated the effectiveness of flexible coastal zone management. This approach, based on natural dynamics and combining the returning reclaimed lands to the sea, reconfiguration of the coastal zone, and reconfiguration of the coastal zone, proved that it is possible to reconcile adaptation to coastal hazards with ecosystem preservation through an original and innovative approach involving landscape, public awareness, citizen participation, ecosystem-based approaches, and climate change effect modeling.
Together, these projects enabled the Conservatoire du littoral and its partners to demonstrate that, within the framework of adapting coastal territories to climate change, a flexible, integrated, and collaborative management is not only feasible but also desirable.
Building on these experiences and the tools developed, the Conservatoire du littoral worked between 2022 and 2024 to continue the approach and define a new phase for Adapto. Collectively, with about ten partner organizations, including BRGM and Cerema, the institution designed and drafted a new project to scale up the approach promoted in the previous LIFE Adapto. In June 2025, Europe once again supported the LIFE Adapto+ project, which also benefits from the support of the Ministry of Ecological Transition, Biodiversity, Forests, the Sea and Fisheries, and the Banque des Territoires.
Since July 1, 2024, and until mid-2029, the Conservatoire du littoral and its partners will work to support territories in implementing flexible coastal zone management through the development of technical, strategic, and financial tools that can be replicated across all types of coastlines.