BLUEADAPT: Reducing climate based health risks in blue environments. Adapting to the climate change impacts on coastal pathogens

Climate change is turning coastal waters into a more dangerous environment for swimmers, shellfish eaters, and anyone living near the shore. The problem is that rising sea temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and more frequent storms are altering how disease-causing microbes survive and spread in coastal waters. Current public health systems were built for a stable climate and cannot predict how these risks will shift over the coming decades. BlueAdapt brings together biologists, climate scientists, epidemiologists, and economists to close that gap. The team will use downscaled climate models to project how specific pathogens—such as those causing gastroenteritis or wound infections—will behave under future conditions, then feed those projections into lab experiments and computer simulations. If successful, the project will produce practical tools that water companies, coastal local authorities, and public health agencies can use to decide when to close beaches, issue warnings, or upgrade treatment systems. Health impact assessments and cost-benefit analyses will help policymakers weigh the trade-offs of different adaptation strategies. The project also aims to identify barriers to adaptation—such as outdated monitoring infrastructure or fragmented governance—and generate new commercial products and services through innovation workshops.