Monaco’s coastline sits within a marine protected area, where coastal infrastructure must meet ecological standards as well as structural ones. Our technology has been in place at two sites in the principality since 2019, with six years of monitoring at Port de Fontvieille showing significantly higher species richness and diversity compared with nearby control rocks. (Image above: ACRI-IN)
Standard riprap revetments lack the water-retaining features that support intertidal life. In 2019, Monaco’s Department of the Environment piloted ECOncrete Tidepool units at Fontvieille harbor as part of the Clean Ports Active in Biodiversity programme. Within early monitoring visits, colonizing species were visible to the naked eye; six years of data confirmed significantly higher species richness and diversity compared with nearby control rocks. (Image: Monaco Environmental Department)
For decades, Larvotto Beach was protected by geotubes, a temporary solution with a 30-year service life increasingly overwhelmed by Mediterranean swell. Four new breakwaters, replacing the geotubes and existing coastal protection, were built, integrating five-ton Coastalock units, specified to meet the site’s extreme hydrodynamic conditions. The Coastalock Units are designed to interlock between themselves and the surrounding rocks while contributing to the marine protected area they sit within by creating new habitats in the form of tidal pools, caves and swim-through holes. (Image: SAMTrasomar)
As Larvotto is Monaco’s most visited public beach, the Coastalock units are visible and accessible to beachgoers, a rare example of nature-inclusive coastal infrastructure in a high-traffic public setting.
