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In the last few decades, the recreational use of beaches and their surrounding areas has increased substantially, influencing the alteration and the loss of heritage elements. For beaches with year-round tourist activity, such as those located in the Canary Islands (Spain), it is especially important to evaluate heritage-based values and in this way contribute to their preservation and integration in local management policies. In this work, an indicator system (comprised of three partial indices: scenic, natural and cultural value) is developed, integrating scientific-technical procedures with narratives of different stakeholders (users, managers, academics, etc.) to assess the value of heritage-based assets in urban, semi-urban and natural beaches. The results obtained reflect a low cultural value and moderate-high scenic value for the three beach types and a high natural value for urban beaches, which is by contrast low in semi-urban beaches. Special importance is given to the need to integrate the heritage values that were identified in the management and planning of each beach.

The relationships between geomorphological vulnerability, recreational quality and heritage at beaches in the Canary Islands (Spain) are studied using three sets of indicators. Processes and their interactions are analysed at urban, semi-urban and natural beaches. Natural, cultural and landscape heritage acts as an attractor of recreational activity, which has intensified significantly on Canarian beaches in recent decades. Overcrowding has negatively impacted conservation of the natural and cultural heritage of the beaches, and has increased human pressure, leading to an increase in geomorphological susceptibility. The resulting reduction in geomorphological resilience has had a negative impact on beach facilities. Despite this common pattern, the relationships between these processes have particularities associated with the different types of beach (urban, semi-urban and natural). In order to establish new priorities in coastal public policy, these beach diagnoses and indices should be discussed and debated by the different actors involved in beach management.

Legal instruments traditionally used for regulating beach management during the last decades have not been very effective in protecting beach socio-ecological systems in many countries. In the last 5 years, two new laws, which impact the Spanish Mediterranean coast, the Mediterranean ICZM Protocol and the amendment to the Ley de Costas 22/88 have been passed. This study analyzes the conflicts existing in various beaches on the Catalan coast and the potential of these new instruments to improve their management. The Protocol has better integrative potential and is more focused on governance than the LC. However, both show a limited capacity to influence beach management in the study sites due to various shortcomings: lack of specificity, lack of capacity to sanction, narrowness of the approach, lack of coordination with lower administrative levels, rigid institutional set up and an inability to restore coastal ecosystems. In order to improve management of some of the conflicts, we suggest scaling down and enforcing specific articles of the Protocol.

The wild Atlantic salmon which spawns in Scottish waters is valued by a multitude of stakeholders. Present wild Atlantic salmon stocks are decreasing, resulting in conflicting perspectives on rights to exploitation and access by angling and net fisheries, forcing government, management and conservation agencies to react and mitigate. Interviews were conducted with key representatives actively involved in the management, conservation and utilisation of the wild salmon of Scotland to investigate the social and political dimensions of the fisheries. All stakeholders noted that a key concern impacting on the wild Atlantic salmon survival was at sea mortality and the risk from the propagation of the aquaculture industry on the west and north coasts. The encouragement given by the Scottish Government for the continual development of fish farms has led to stakeholders feeling dissatisfied with the value given to the Scottish wild salmon fishery. Stakeholders felt distrusting of the Government's commitment for creating legislative measures which will adequately protect wild salmon populations. Furthermore, different resource users have differing values attached to salmon and therefore competing perspectives on fair access and entitlement for the activity. Government must be respectful of actors differing perspectives to gain the trust of stakeholders in order to guide management and conservation practices efficaciously for the sustainability of the wild salmon fisheries in Scotland.

Coastal areas of developed countries have been altered by human activities, especially since the mid-20th century. This has notably affected the flow of ecosystem services that these environments provide. In this context, this paper’s research has focused on the historical evolution of socio-ecological dynamics and ecosystem services in a Mediterranean coastal landscape, characterized by the intense development of recent decades and the high biodiversity value. Qualitative and quantitative data were gathered and analyzed through different methods (document and spatial analysis, statistical treatment). Results show the long history of many ecosystem services (increase/decrease in food provisioning, stabilization/decline of regulating services and no use/intense use of cultural services) and their decline in recent decades due to industrial and residential development (which expanded from 1.7 to 47.5%). To overcome this situation, this paper discusses the current state of ecosystem services and conservation tasks carried out and how the results of the research can be included in the different elements of the governance of shoreline areas.

Comprehensive analyses of governance processes and stakeholder perceptions of beach management in Florida and many other coastal areas are lacking. Based on exploratory interviews and literature reviews, a survey instrument was administered that quantitatively queried seven primary stakeholder groups on fundamental issues regarding the management of Florida's beaches. Stakeholders expressed complex opinions including a mixture of both satisfaction and dissatisfaction with management of beaches in the state. There was a lack of consensus on multiple issues with considerable concern about several management issues including reactive, not proactive approaches, incomplete stakeholder representation and limited control of coastal construction. There were also concerns about the long term emphasis on engineering (seawalls, groins and breakwaters) relative to other management options (land use policies). Both political processes and availability of finances were often cited as primary reasons for Florida beach management challenges (39% and 44% of stakeholders respectively). The data also suggested polarization regarding the long term priorities of beach management in several questions including beach nourishment projects and planning for Sea Level Rise (SLR). Primary elements influencing satisfaction/dissatisfaction were the management of natural resources, politics, institutional coordination, public hearing effectiveness and control of coastal construction.

18 páginas., This article presents a comprehensive analysis of beach management in the Catalan coast (NW Mediterranean) by introducing and integrating results from different partial projects. They analyzed the legal, political, and administrative framework of beach management, the quality tools available, the practices of management, the processes of beach use, and beach waste/litter dynamics. The information obtained served to create a new beach management tool referred to as the Beach Quality Index, which was developed by an interdisciplinary team of academics from the natural/physical sciences and social sciences that worked together during the course of four years. Information obtained from users and key stakeholders served to create the index. The study demonstrated that as a consequence of the shortcomings in the legal and administrative system as well as inadequate practices of beach managers, beach management in the area experiences coordination problems, insufficient information and lack of proactive management, pollution, and in general problems associated with the satisfaction of short-term user demands.

This paper measures the effects of beach characteristics and hotel location with respect to the beach on sun-and-beach hotel prices by using a well-established hedonic perspective. The paper’s main results are that, after controlling for the relevant variables, location in front of a beach increases the price of a room in costal hotels of Catalonia by a figure between 13 and 17%, and that a Blue Flag increases the price by around 11.5%. The effects on hotels’ prices of other beach characteristics (such as beach length, width, sand type or beach services) are also estimated. With these estimates, the paper ranks beaches according to their characteristics and provides a setting to assess different policies regarding beaches from the point of view of hotels, such as regeneration, maintenance or achieving a Blue Flag award.

In the present paper, the current beach management framework in the North-Western Mediterranean coast (Catalonia, Spain) was revised. Beach management was analyzed using the concepts of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM). The history of beach management in the second half of the 20 century and the new developments in the academic field and in the practical beach management sector during the last decade were studied. The revision of legal texts and strategies in the Catalan coast allowed synthesizing all scattered information affecting beach management. A SWOT analysis was performed. The main strengths of the beach management framework in Catalonia are the public ownership of beaches, which allows the government to carry out a comprehensive management and the recent data and analysis provided by the adopted National and Autonomous ICZM strategies. The weaknesses found were related to the functioning of traditional existing institutions. New opportunities are related to the possibility of establishing new institutions that conduct a more inclusive and proactive management. The main threat is that although the possibility for a fundamental change in beach management organization exists, resources available are not fully exploited.

20 páginas, 7 figuras, 5 tablas., The present status of beachmanagement carried out by the lowest level of administration (municipalities) along the Catalancoast (NE Spanish Mediterranean) was analysed to detect the main problems and priorities. This analysis was undertaken by analysing answers to a questionnaire provided by personnel involved in beachmanagement in 38 municipalities covering a coastline of 430 km. As tourism is the main economic activity in the area, current beachmanagement is recreationally oriented. The beach is considered a product/service on offer to users and visitors. The main concern of managers was the appearance of sediment-management related problems. Although municipalities are the main “receivers” of erosion-induced problems, actions to solve or counteract such problems are decided, designed and executed at a different administrative level. This reflects the complex administrative scheme governing the coastal area in Spain, where three different administrations have different jurisdictional powers over a narrow piece of land., This work was carried out within the framework of the MeVaPlaya project, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science, under contract REN2003-09029-C03-MAR. The second author would like to thank the government of Catalonia for its support through the University Research Promotion Award for Young Researchers.

A composite index, based on function analysis and including thirteen sub-indices, was developed to assess the overall quality of urban and urbanized beaches in the Mediterranean area. The aggregation of components and sub-indices was based on two questionnaires completed by beach users and experts. Applying the new Beach Quality Index (BQI) demonstrated that the quality of beaches could be improved. In general, the strongest aspects of the beaches assessed were those related to short-term user demand, and the weakest were those related to the consequences of human pressure on the area, in particular, erosion problems. The composite index is intended to be used together with Environmental Management Beach Systems (EMBs) as a hierarchical management scorecard and in monitoring programs. This new tool could also make planning more proactive by synthesizing the state of the most important beach processes.

20 páginas., Performance assessment measures have traditionally been used by beach managers to guarantee beach quality. In order to know effectiveness of the ones applied to the Mediterranean coast and assess how functions assigned to beaches are covered, fourteen beach management criteria were selected. We studied how one standard (the Blue Flag award) and three rating systems (the ACA, CEDEX, and Cantabria indexes) covered those criteria and the results of their application to six beaches of the Costa Brava (Catalan Coast). No single assessment measurement considers all selected criteria and some general weaknesses were revealed. Of the analyzed tools, the CEDEX index proved to be the best for monitoring beach processes. The characteristics of Environmental Management Systems applied for Beach Management processes (EMSBs) were also assessed. The way in which those managerial frameworks are established has not been extensively considered, but the results suggest a need for its further development. This new tool will allow a general management framework to be adopted. Current standards/rating systems can be partially adapted and included within EMSBs.