For the last two decades IEM has been strongly engaged with the national coastal policies of Bulgaria. Since 2006 IEM is reviewing on a yearly basis the implementation of the national coastal priorities and is preparing an annual report for Bulgaria to the ICZM advisory group of the Black Sea Commission. The director of IEM who serves as a national focal point in the ICZM AG, has also served for two full mandates as a member of the Basin Council to the Bulgarian Black Sea Basin Directorate. The coastal zone is the most valuable area for every country and as such, it is a subject of high investment pressure. The concentration of population and the massive exploitation of coastal resources leads to destruction of some coastal habitats and to loss of biodiversity. IEM is working on mitigating the conflicts between potential uses and users of the coastal zone and on preventing space congestion problems. Being highly vulnerable to natural hazards, coastal zones are related to another primary field of IEM's expertise – adaptation to climate change. The extreme weather events causing coastal floods, coastal erosion, sea level rise have a long-term effect and change the environment, the economy and livelihoods of coastal communities, therefore adaptation to climate change is a substantial part of IEM's work on ICZM.

IEM has been working on a number of international projects aimed at achieving environmental and social resilience by adapting to climate change and by managing the risks of natural disasters. This work is in line with the EU goal to adapt to the unavoidable impacts of climate change and becoming climate resilient by 2050. IEM's work is linked to the mitigation of all types of natural disasters caused by long-term changes of hydro- and meteorological conditions but its main focus is on flood risk. IEM has a good record of working on the use and upscaling of nature-based solutions and ecosystem services for reducing floods. The NBS upscaling work is being implemented in a systemic way, in collaboration with authorities from all levels of governance. Special attention is being paid to the actions of the local authorities and to the development of their strategic plans and fiscal policies related to the reduction of climate-related risks. Actively helping to mainstream climate resilience considerations in all local policies, IEM is committed to the key goals of the relevant EU documents: WFD, Flood directive, European Green Deal, Biodiversity strategy and Climate adaptation strategy.