Coastal wetlands experience dramatic changes as a consequence of temperature increase, sea level rise, or nutrient accumulation. This has raised great concern about the future fate of such systems, their functioning and services. Conservation policies are in need of new approaches in order to understand the complex feedback mechanisms driving organismic responses to environmental changes, and improving our capability to forecast future changes in higher hierarchical levels of the ecosystems. The CREC consortium will address these issues by investigating: (i) effects of interacting environmental drivers, (ii) combined changes in biotic interactions, and (iii) feedback loops between hierarchical levels within ecological systems. We selected mangroves as our core topic since these wetlands are particularly threatened by environmental changes but provide multiple functions to be conserved in the future. Nevertheless, the research techniques applied in the working packages will form an ecological know-how that scientists will easily transfer to other ecosystems including European ones. This will significantly improve both, the strength and impact power of the applying consortium, and the scientific base for conservation, rehabilitation and management of coastal ecosystems. The CREC network brings together 9 participants from 3 European countries and 5 Third countries. The network builds on a strong base of already established co-operations but will also provide new cross-links of expertise on empirical, theoretical, and applied aspects of wetland research. In this frame, the merging of ecophysiological research and computer modelling is seminal and strategically important for the development and implementation of innovative and scientifically sound technologies for coastal conservation and environmental management. The CREC research activities are thus in agreement with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the World Summit on Sustainable Development.