Resumen de Indices and indicators for integratged coastal zone management with a landscape approach. Application to the Adriatic Sea
Society urgently needs good scientific tools to improve coastal understanding of the landscape and seascape mechanisms and get conscious of the coastal geo-biophysical limits. This work provides a general methodology and addresses some synergies between integrated coastal zone management, landscape ecology, and coastal spatial planning through GIS implementation. This approach is relevant in order to minimize coastal conflicts and support both terrestrial and marine spatial planning, using a strategic assessment, scenario building, multiple use allocation, and sustainable use of resources. The system ecology is used in order to understand the thresholds and evaluate sustainability levels of coastal zones. The global scope is to implement in coastal zones the following issues for increasing resilience and long durée for the coastal socio-ecological system: a set of possible options in planning and management for the use of coastal space and resources, a definition of actors and goals to be considered relevant, a construction of information for the coastal choices, and a set of priorities. The analysis allows to individuate the most critical areas in the Mediterranean using a landscape approach at a wide geographic scale (European Mediterranean Sea), and a qualitative approach. From this analysis the pressures on the Adriatic emerged as a hot spot (in particular in the three studied areas: Venice, Rimini and Ancona), also in according with other analysis. The lowering of the scale permits a real landscape approach integrated with an ecosystem health one. This approach permits to build a GIS based decision-support system for coastal zones, and this methodology can be exported and adapted to other coastal areas. Indicators and indices are developed with a focus on sub-regional level (through a quantification of healthy indices as emergy, exergy, ecological footprint; urban sprawl and ecosystem fragmentation indices) and local problems in coastal management (based on spatial indices and indicators as Landscape Development Index, indices of ecological quality, economic value of ecosystem functions, fractal dimension of patches), with a multi-scale approach based on landscape and seascape ecology. The macrochore and mesochore (i.e. the higher level of landscape scale) analyses detect an increase of impacts with maximum value in the costal fringe. In this area the human activity overpasses the geo-biophysical limits. The lowering of the scale allows analyzing how different coastal landscapes (a coastal lagoon, a sand beach, a rocky coast) respond to anthropization pressures. Indices are made combining satellite imagery, socio-economic and environmental data, and landscape and seascape maps. The indices were created in order to show ecological changes, habitat loss and gaps in conflict management and conservation policy. The application of the developed decision support system is based on a conceptual model and follows a framework with several steps: ¿ Definition of homogeneous environmental management units, and analysis of spatial and temporal structure, hierarchy and dynamics over multiple scales. This approach permits up-scaling and down-scaling feedbacks. ¿ Analysis of pressure and land-use changes in the coastal system. ¿ Implementation of spatial indices in a coastal GIS. ¿ Conservation-gaps analysis, habitat loss assessment and fragmentation of coastal habitats. ¿ Assessment and minimization of coastal conflicts and impacts at different scales, including stakeholder perception of problems ¿ Multicriteria Analysis in order to minimize conflicts over a set of values and constraints and Scenarios building. The developed methodology shows (through its application to the Mediterranean Sea and the Italian Adriatic Coast) to be very useful for making correct diagnoses of problems at different scales, assessing impacts and minimizing conflicts, becoming a very suitable tool for its application to Integrated Coastal Zone Management.
