The EU LIFE Third Countries project "Improving Coastal Land Degradation Monitoring in Lebanon and Syria" hereinafter referred to as CoLD Project, has been launched on 13 February 2002. Its total duration is 30 months. The project relies on an overall budget of 503,000 Euro, 70% of which funded by the EC.

The CoLD Project is based on a multi-scale approach which allows to tackle the phenomenon of land degradation according to a diagnostic analysis of the whole coastal area of the two concerned Countries (scale 1:100,000) and a detailed analysis carried out in four selected pilot areas (scale 1:50,000), in order to make it possible the provision of Guidelines and Recommendations to local stakeholders as a support to planning and decision making processes.