BARGAIN

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The BARGAIN project is funded by Regione Lazio, PUBLIC CALL FOR PROPOSALS OF RESEARCH GROUPS - Knowledge and cooperation for a new development model (L.R. 13/2008 - art. 4).

Overall budget: € 149,922.69. Duration: 26 months.

The project involves a collaboration among public research bodies on the regional territory: ISPRA Rome (Lead Partner), ENEA Casaccia and University of Rome “Tor Vergata”.

These Institutes are members of a consortium called "Organism of Research and Dissemination of Knowledge - OdR", coordinated by Dr. Alfonso Scarpato (Researcher, ISPRA).

The BARGAIN project aims to combine the touristic activities on the beaches with the protection of coastal ecosystems in a pilot model of ECOLOGICAL BEACH, exportable on a national/international scale.

This new management model avoids the removal of posidonia beach casts and banquette and the landfill disposal. Only in cases where it is not possible to maintain posidonia beach casts on site, the model promotes their possible reuse, according to the circular economy principles and to coastal ecosystem protection. Posidonia beach casts can be used for the realization of multifunctional structures or outdoor beach furniture: this technology is patented by ENEA (patent no. 1424765, “Sidonia-by-ENEA” trademark, deposited on 24^th, March 2014 and released in 2016). This technology, selected for the BARGAIN project, has been successfully tested in previous national and international projects, such as STRATUS and ES-PA

Accumulations of posidonia dead leaves on the Mediterranean beaches is a natural process. However, tourists often consider posidonia beach casts and banquette as a malevolent waste, rather than a natural component of the coastline, ignoring their important ecological functions. Learn more

The success of the ECOLOGICAL BEACH model depends on the consciousness about the value and vulnerability of coastal ecosystems. Thus, it requires a deep socio-cultural innovation, to change the banquette perception from a problem to a resource. To this end, the BARGAIN project developed specific activities and products for students, tourists, public administrations and beach managers. Some examples are reported below:

The comic “BANQUETTE TO THE RESCUE” (language: English) DOWNLOAD
The cartoon “BANQUETTE TO THE RESCUE” (English subtitles) WATCH THE VIDEO
Game "Play Banquette"
Short video-lessons as an alternative to teaching activities in the classroom (language: Italian):
The technical guidelines for the Ecological Beach model by ISPRA- SNPA "The Ecological Beach: sustainable management of Posidonia banquettein the Lazio Region ", officially presented on June 10th, 2020 (language: Italian) Download
A scientific publication entitled: Effectiveness of the “Ecological Beach” Model: Beneficial Management of Posidonia Beach Casts and Banquette (language: English) AVAILABLE HERE
Scientific publication entitled: Water | Free Full-Text | Effectiveness of the “Ecological Beach” Model: Beneficial Management of Posidonia Beach Casts and Banquette (mdpi.com) - Available here
The first two Ecological Beaches in the Lazio Region (June 2020) Photo Gallery