Baltic PlaNet: One Year of Progress Towards Climate-Resilient Coastal Planning

The first year of the Baltic PlaNet project has been dedicated to building a strong foundation for climate-resilient coastal spatial planning across the Baltic Sea Region. From enhancing the Sea2Land Navigator with climate change considerations to engaging coastal communities in adaptation planning and preparing a comprehensive learning programme for planners, Baltic PlaNet has achieved several important milestones. These efforts are helping to bridge knowledge, policy, and practice, ensuring that coastal municipalities are better equipped to respond to the growing impacts of climate change.

Below, we look back at the key achievements of the project’s first year and the work that is paving the way for the next phase of Baltic PlaNet.

Building the Foundation of the Sea2Land Navigator

During the first year of Baltic PlaNet, project have made significant progress in shaping the Sea2Land Navigator – the project’s core platform designed to support climate-resilient coastal spatial planning across the Baltic Sea Region. At the partner workshop in Tallinn, discussions focused on integrating climate information into the Navigator, improving its user experience, and exploring new functionalities that will help planners better address climate-related challenges in coastal areas.

Another important milestone was the advancement of work on climate data integration and the future data repository. Partners worked together to identify relevant data sources, discuss technical solutions for data access, and ensure synergies with other Baltic Sea Region initiatives. These efforts will help create a reliable and user-friendly platform that supports evidence-based planning and decision-making.

Looking ahead, Sea2LandNavigator will continue to be developed and tested while also preparing international workshops (first to be held in Autumn 2026) that will engage planners, experts and stakeholders from across the region. These activities will provide valuable feedback and help ensure that the platform responds to the real needs of coastal municipalities facing increasing climate risks.

• Explore Sea2Land Navigator here.
• Understand how to use it in this user guide.
• Watch short video about this tool here.

Coastal Adaptation and Multilevel Governance

The project has made strong progress in further understanding the mechanism of Coastal Adaptation and Multilevel Governance in the Baltic Sea Region. Activities have focused on establishing cooperation mechanisms between different governance levels, engaging coastal municipalities and stakeholders, and gathering practical experience through local workshops and pilot activities. The stakeholder engagement processes initiated in Latvia have successfully generated valuable insights on flood risk, social vulnerability, and climate adaptation needs, while preparations are advancing for similar activities in Poland and Estonia.

In parallel, partners are consolidating knowledge from previous projects and assessing coastal extreme weather events to support the development of adaptation pathways and resilience planning approaches. These activities are laying the foundation for the preparation of practical guidance materials aimed at strengthening climate-resilient spatial planning across the Baltic Sea Region.

The work remains on schedule and is progressing towards one of the projects deliverables, which will provide guidance and recommendations for intergovernmental cooperation in coastal climate adaptation and planning.

Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Building to Advance Climate-Resilient Coastal Planning in BSR

An important milestone was the completion of the Stakeholder Engagement and Communication Plan, which provides the framework for involving stakeholders throughout the project. The plan is publicly available and can be explored on the Baltic PlaNet project website.

Building on this foundation, the project team engaged with planners, policymakers and other stakeholders at major regional and European events, including the EUSBSR Annual Forum, European Maritime Day 2026 and the Land-based Planners’ Forum. Through presentations, workshops and networking activities, Baltic PlaNet highlighted the role of spatial planning in addressing climate change and strengthening coastal resilience.

Preparations also began for the upcoming capacity-building programme for local and regional spatial planners. The programme will offer practical learning opportunities to support climate adaptation in spatial planning. Already first webinar will take place in October 2026 on the topic of understanding climate change, exploring future climate projections for the region’s coastal zones.

Together, these achievements are creating a stronger network of stakeholders, fostering knowledge exchange and supporting more resilient coastal regions across the Baltic Sea.

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