Eco-touristic snorkelling routes at Marinha beach (Algarve): Environmental education and human impacts

The use of natural areas for underwater coastal marine activities such as snorkelling is growing, but the amount of ecological and socioeconomic data on these activities is scarce and relates mainly to coral reef areas. Three underwater self-guided routes were designed at Marinha Beach (Algarve, Portugal), based on scientific information, with in situ interpretation and guidance, as a way to enhance biodiversity awareness and, hence, reduce the probability of human impacts. The routes were implemented in two consecutive summer seasons and after each season, visual census techniques were used to describe flora composition and cover area (seaweeds and seagrasses) in order to understand patterns and evaluate human impacts. Snorkelers' opinions and perceptions about several issues related to the routes' environmental education role (e.g. role in enhancing biocliversity awareness) were investigated by questionnaire after the snorkelling activity. An inter-annual difference inflora assemblages was found, probably associated to natural variability, rather than snorkelers' impacts. Results indicate that, in fact, in situ education and interpretation can raise environmental awareness if properly addressed, resulting in a satisfactory way of engaging snorkelers in the protection and in the conservation of the visited environments, thereby preventing negative ecological impacts. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Broad-scale mapping of seafloor habitats in the north-east Atlantic using existing environmental data

If marine management policies and actions are to achieve long-term sustainable use and management of the marine environment and its resources, they need to be informed by data giving the spatial distribution of seafloor habitats over large areas. Broad-scale seafloor habitat mapping is an approachwhich has the benefit of producing maps covering large extents at a reasonable cost. This approach was first investigated by Roff et al. (2003), who, acknowledging that benthic communities are strongly influenced by the physical characteristics of the seafloor, proposed overlaying mapped physical variables using a geographic information system (GIS) to produce an integrated map of the physical characteristics of the seafloor. In Europe the method was adapted to the marine section of the EUNIS (European Nature Information System) classification of habitat types under the MESH project, andwas applied at an operational level in 2011 under the EUSeaMap project. The present study compiled GIS layers for fundamental physical parameters in the northeast Atlantic, including (i) bathymetry, (ii) substrate type, (iii) light penetration depth and (iv) exposure to near-seafloor currents andwave action. Based on analyses of biological occurrences, significant thresholds were fine-tuned for each of the abiotic layers and later used in multi-criteria raster algebra for the integration of the layers into a seafloor habitat map. The final result was a harmonised broad-scale seafloor habitat map with a 250 m pixel size covering four extensive areas, i.e. Ireland, the Bay of Biscay, the Iberian Peninsula and the Azores. The map provided the first comprehensive perception of habitat spatial distribution for the Iberian Peninsula and the Azores, and fed into the initiative for a pan- European map initiated by the EUSeaMap project for Baltic, North, Celtic and Mediterranean seas.