Adaptación del sector turístico al cambio climático en España. La importancia de las acciones a escala local y en empresas turísticas

El 5º Informe del IPCC (Panel Intergubernamental de Cambio Climático, 2014) señala que el turismo será una de las actividades económicas que mayores efectos negativos experimentará en las próximas décadas debido al calentamiento térmico del planeta. En España, el turismo es una fuente principal de ingresos y de creación de puestos de trabajo en su economía. De ahí que sea necesaria la puesta en marcha de medidas de adaptación a la nueva realidad climática que, en nuestro país, va a suponer cambios en el confort climático de los destinos e incremento de extremos atmosféricos. Frente a los planes de adaptación al cambio climático en la actividad turística, elaborados por los gobiernos estatal y regional, que apenas se han desarrollado en España, la escala local muestra interesantes ejemplos de acciones de adaptación al cambio climático, desarrolladas tanto por los municipios (energía, transporte, vivienda, planificación urbanística) como por la propia empresa turística (hoteles, campings, apartamentos). Medidas de ahorro de agua y luz, fomento del transporte público y de las energías limpias, creación de zonas verdes urbanas y adaptación a los extremos atmosféricos destacan como acciones de mitigación del cambio climático en los destinos turísticos principales de nuestro país.

An assessment of the economic impact of climate change on the coastal and human settlements, tourism and transport sectors in Barbados

This report analyses the coastal and human settlements, tourism and transport sectors in Barbados to assess the potential economic impact of climate change on the sectors. The fundamental aim of this report is to assist with the development of strategies to deal with the potential impact of climate change on Barbados. Some of the key anticipated manifestations of climate change for the Caribbean include elevated air and sea-surface temperatures, sea-level rise, possible changes in extreme events and a reduction in freshwater resources. The economic impact of climate change on the three sectors was estimated for the A2 and B2 IPCC scenarios until 2050 (tourism and transport sectors) and 2100 (coastal and human settlements sector). An exploration of various adaptation strategies was also undertaken for each sector using standard evaluation techniques. The analysis has shown that based upon exposed assets and population, SLR can be classified as having the potential to create potential catastrophe in Barbados. The main contributing factor is the concentration of socioeconomic infrastructure along the coastline in vulnerable areas. The A2 and B2 projections have indicated that the number of catastrophes that can be classified as great is likely to be increased for the country. This is based upon the possible effects of the projected unscheduled impacts to the economy both in terms of loss of life and economic infrastructure. These results arise from the A2 and B2 projections, thereby indicating that growth in numbers and losses are largely due to socioeconomic changes over the projection period and hence the need for increased adaptation strategies. A key adaptation measure recommended is for the government of Barbados to begin reducing the infrastructure deficit by continuously investing in protective infrastructure to decrease the country’s vulnerability to changes in the climate. With regard to the tourism sector, it was found that by combining the impacts due to a reduction in tourist arrivals, coral reef loss and SLR, estimated total economic impact of climate change is US $7,648 million (A2 scenario) and US $5,127 million (B2 scenario). An economic analysis of the benefits and costs of several adaptation options was undertaken to determine the cost effectiveness of each one and it was found that four (4) out of nine (9) options had high cost-benefit ratios. It is therefore recommended that the strategies that were most attractive in terms of the cost-benefit ratios be pursued first and these were: (1) enhanced reef monitoring systems to provide early warning alerts of bleaching events; (2) artificial reefs or fish-aggregating devices; (3) development of national adaptation plans (levee, sea wall and boardwalk); (4) revision of policies related to financing carbon neutral tourism; and (5) increasing recommended design wind speeds for new tourism-related structures. The total cost of climate change on international transportation in Barbados aggregated the impacts of changes in temperature and precipitation, new climate policies and SLR. The impact for air transportation ranges from US$10,727 million (B2 scenario) to US$12,279 million (A2 scenario) and for maritime transportation impact estimates range from US$1,992 million (B2 scenario) to US$2,606 million (A2 scenario). For international transportation as a whole, the impact of climate change varies from US$12,719 million under the B2 scenario to US$14,885 million under the A2 scenario. Barbados has the institutions set up to implement adaptive strategies to strengthen the resilience of the existing international transportation system to climate change impacts. Air and sea terminals and facilities can be made more robust, raised, or even relocated as need be, and where critical to safety and mobility, expanded redundant systems may be considered.

Beyond megaprojects?. Water alternatives for mass tourism in coastal Mediterranean Spain

Water availability in adequate quantities and qualities is a fundamental requirement for tourism. In the Mediterranean, one of the world’s leading tourist destinations, water availability is subject to modest and erratic precipitation figures which may decline with climate change. The tourist industry therefore may have to assure future supplies by either recurring to new technologies such as desalination or increasing efficiency in water use. A third and yet little explored alternative would be to seek for complementary of uses with irrigation, the traditional user in many coastal Mediterranean areas and holder of substantial amounts of water. In this paper we present the example of the Consorcio de Aguas de la Marina Baja to show how Benidorm, in Mediterranean Spain and one of the most important tourist centers of the Mediterranean, obtains part of its water through agreements with farmers by which these trade their water with Benidorm and other towns’ treated wastewater of enough quality to be used for irrigation, and obtain several compensations in return. The advantages and disadvantages of the water trade between farmers and tourist interests in the Benidorm area are discussed and we argue that solutions to the pending water crisis of many coastal Mediterranean tourist areas may not need to rely uniquely on expensive technologies to generate new resources but may attempt other alternatives.

Enriching relationships : community engagment toward sustainable coastal futures

Coastal communities face the social, cultural and environmental challenges of managing rapid urban and industrial development, expanding tourism, and sensitive ecological environments. Enriching relationships between communities and universities through a structured engagement process can deliver integrated options towards sustainable coastal futures. This process draws on the embedded knowledge and values of all participants in the relationship, and offers a wide and affordable range of options for the future. This paper reviews lessons learnt from two projects with coastal communities, and discusses their application in a third. Queensland University of Technology has formed collaborative partnerships with industry in Queensland's Wide Bay-Burnett region to undertake a series of planning and design projects with community engagement as a central process. Senior students worked with community and produced design and planning drawings and reports outlining future options for project areas. A reflective approach has been adopted by the authors to assess the engagement process and outcomes of each project to learn lessons to apply in the next. Methods include surveying community and student participants regarding the value they place on process and outcomes respectively in planning for a sustainable future. All project participants surveyed have placed high importance on the process of engagement, emphasising the value of developing relationships between all project partners. The quality of these relationships is central to planning for sustainable futures, and while the outcomes the students deliver are valued, it is as much for their catalytic role as for their contents. Design and planning projects through community engagement have been found to develop innovative responses to the challenges faced by coastal communities seeking direction toward sustainable futures. The enrichment of engagement relationships and processes has an important influence on the quality of these design and planning responses.

Mapping of shallow coastal groundwaters, their hydrology and environmental geochemistry : Pumicestone catchment, Southeast Queensland

Blooms of the toxic cyanobacterium majuscula Lyngbya in the coastal waters of southeast Queensland have caused adverse impacts on both environmental health and human health, and on local economies such as fishing and tourism. A number of studies have confirmed that the main limiting nutrients (“nutrients of concern”) that contribute to these blooms area Fe, DOC, N, P and also pH. This study is conducted to establish the distribution of these parameters in a typical southeast Queensland coastal setting. The study maps the geochemistry of shallow groundwater in the mainland Pumicestone catchment with an emphasis on the nutrients of concern to understand how these nutrients relate to aquifer materials, landuse and anthropogenic activities. The results of the study form a GIS information layer which will be incorporated into a larger GIS model being produced by Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM) to support landuse management to avoid/minimize blooms of Lyngbya in Moreton Bay, southeast Queensland, and other similar settings. A total of 38 boreholes were established in the mainland Pumicestone region and four sampling rounds of groundwater carried out in both dry and wet conditions. These groundwater samples were measured in the field for physico-chemical parameters, and in the laboratory analyses for the nutrients of concern, and other major and minor ions. Aquifer materials were confirmed using the Geological Survey of Queensland digital geology map, and geomaterials were assigned to seven categories which are A (sands), B (silts, sandy silts), C (estuarine mud, silts), D (humid soils), E (alluvium), F (sandstone) and G (other bedrock). The results of the water chemistry were examined by use of the software package AquaChem/AqQA, and divided into six groundwater groups, based on groundwater chemical types and location of boreholes. The type of aquifer material and location, and proximity to waterways was found to be important because they affected physico-chemical properties and concentrations of nutrients of concern and dissolved ions. The analytical results showed that iron concentrations of shallow groundwaters were high due to acid sulfate soils, and also mud and silt, but were lower in sand materials. DOC concentrations of these shallow groundwaters in the sand material were high probably due to rapid infiltration. In addition, DOC concentrations in some boreholes were high because they were installed in organic rich wetlands. The pH values of boreholes were from acidic to near neutral; some boreholes with pH values were low (< 4), showing acid sulfate soils in these boreholes. Concentrations of total nitrogen and total phosphorus of groundwaters were generally low, and the main causes of elevated concentrations of total nitrogen and total phosphorus are largely due to animal and human wastes and tend to be found in localized source areas. Comparison of the relative percentage of nitrogen species (NH3/NH4< Org-N, NO3-N and NO2-N) demonstrated that they could be related to sources such as animal waste, residential and agricultural fertilizers, forest and vegetation, mixed residents and farms, and variable setting and vegetation covers. Total concentrations of dissolved ions in sampling round 3 (dry period) were higher than those in sampling round 2 (wet period) due to both evaporation of groundwater in the dry period and the dilution of rainfall in the wet period. This showed that the highest concentrations of nutrients of concern were due to acid sulfate soils, aquifer materials, landuse and anthropogenic activities and were typically in aquifer materials of E (alluvium) and C (estuarine muds) and locations of Burpengary, Caboolture, and Glass Mountain catchments.

Estimating the potential impact of entry fees for marine parks on dive tourism in South East Asia

Marine reserves are increasingly being established as a mechanism to protect marine biodiversity and sensitive habitats. As well as providing conservation benefits, marine reserves provide benefits to recreational scuba divers who dive within the reserve, as well as to recreational and commercial fishers outside the reserve through spill-over effects. To ensure benefits are being realised, management of marine reserves requires ongoing monitoring and surveillance. These are not costless, and many marine reserve managers impose an entry fee. In some countries, dive tourism is major income source to coastal industries, and a concern is that high entry fees may dissuade divers. In this paper, the price elasticity of demand for dive tourism in three countries in South East Asia – Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia – is estimated using a travel-cost model. From the model, the total non-market use value associated with diving in the area is estimated to be in the order of US$4.5 billion a year. The price elasticity of demand in the region is highly inelastic, such that increasing the cost of diving through a management levy would have little impact on total diver numbers.

Assessing tourist demand for traditional coastal dependent businesses on the South Carolina coast

Tourism driven development and coastal gentrification have resulted in a notable decline in traditional coastaldependent businesses on the South Carolina (SC) coast. We examined the sustainability of these businesses by assessing tourists’ demand for local, traditional, and marine related products and services. The research integrated focus groups and an intercept-based mail survey. This paper reports selected survey results and discusses how the findings will be incorporated into small-business training materials. (PDF contains 4 pages)

Integrating climate change impacts to improve understanding of coastal climate change: heavy rains, strong winds, and high seas in coastal Hawaii, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest

Coastal storms, and the strong winds, heavy rains, and high seas that accompany them pose a serious threat to the lives and livelihoods of the peoples of the Pacific basin, from the tropics to the high latitudes. To reduce their vulnerability to the economic, social, and environmental risks associated with these phenomena (and correspondingly enhance their resiliency), decision-makers in coastal communities require timely access to accurate information that affords them an opportunity to plan and respond accordingly. This includes information about the potential for coastal flooding, inundation and erosion at time scales ranging from hours to years, as well as the longterm climatological context of this information. The Pacific Storms Climatology Project (PSCP) was formed in 2006 with the intent of improving scientific understanding of patterns and trends of storm frequency and intensity - “storminess”- and related impacts of these extreme events. The project is currently developing a suite of integrated information products that can be used by emergency managers, mitigation planners, government agencies and decision-makers in key sectors, including: water and natural resource management, agriculture and fisheries, transportation and communication, and recreation and tourism. The PSCP is exploring how the climate-related processes that govern extreme storm events are expressed within and between three primary thematic areas: heavy rains, strong winds, and high seas. To address these thematic areas, PSCP has focused on developing analyses of historical climate records collected throughout the Pacific region, and the integration of these climatological analyses with near-real time observations to put recent weather and climate events into a longer-term perspective.(PDF contains 4 pages)

Improving the chances for developing coastal country success in adapting to climate change

There is an unequivocal scientific consensus that increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere drive warming temperatures of air and sea, and acidification of the world’s oceans from carbon dioxide absorbed by the oceans. These changes in turn can induce shifts in precipitation patterns, sea level rise, and more frequent and severe extreme weather events (e.g. storms and sea surge). All of these impacts are already being witnessed in the world’s coastal regions and are projected to intensify in years to come. Taken together, these impacts are likely to result in significant alteration of natural habitats and coastal ecosystems, and increased coastal hazards in low-lying areas. They can affect fishers, coastal communities and resource users, recreation and tourism, and coastal infrastructure. Approaches to planned adaptation to these impacts can be drawn from the lessons and good practices from global experience in Integrated Coastal Management (ICM). The recently published USAID Guidebook on Adapting to Coastal Climate Change (USAID 2009) is directed at practitioners, development planners, and coastal management professionals in developing countries. It offers approaches for assessing vulnerability to climate change and climate variability in communities and outlines how to develop and implement adaptation measures at the local and national levels. Six best practices for coastal adaptation are featured in the USAID Guidebook on Adapting to Coastal Climate Change and summarized in the following sections. (PDF contains 3 pages)

An idealized rural coastal zone management integrating land and water use

Various countries have formulated special integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) strategies which seek to both manage development and conserve natural resources and integrate and coordinate the relevant people sectors and their functions and roles within the bounds of this rich realm. Concerns that may be addressed by ICZM include: 1) Natural resources degradation; 2) Pollution; 3) Land use conflicts; and, 4) Destruction of life and property by natural hazards. Some prevalent sources of environmental impacts (livelihoods) are listed, together with some recommendations to the concerns which they may raise in relation to coastal zone management: agriculture; aquaculture; fisheries; forestry; human settlements; tourism; and, transport industry.

Management options towards coastal sustainability

Dissertação de Mestrado, Gestão da Água e da Costa, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade do Algarve, University of Plymouth, Universidad de Cadiz, 2010

Integrated Management for Sustainable Development of Coastal Zones – A Gis Based Study on the Central Kerala Coast

The present study focuses on the stability of the coast, exploitation of the coastal resources, human activities within the study are that extends from Fort Cochin at north to Thottappally at south, central Kerala State and hinterlands, socio-economic problems of the coastal community and the environmental issues arising in the recent past due to human activities. The objective of the study is critically analyse the coastal zone region and prevailing situation and to propose a comprehensive management plan for the sustainable development of the region under study. The thesis covers varied aspects of coastal uses like fisheries, tourism, land use, water resources etc. To critically examine the above scenarios, the ILWIS (Integrated Land and Water Information Systems) – GIS software has been used. A satellite image of the area has been used for the coastline change detection and land use patterns. The outcome of the present study will be beneficial to the various stakeholders within the coastal region and its hinterlands. To further add, this study should find better applications to similar or near-similar situations of Southeast Asia where identical scenarios are noticeable.

The rise of urban tourism in Havana since 1989

This article looks at the development of urban tourism in Havana, Cuba, in the period since the collapse of state socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe. It provides an interesting case study of the adoption of an outward-oriented state development policy in the context of a socialist state. The dramatic rise of urban-based tourism in Havana since 1989 is described, followed by a review of the socio-economic impacts of such tourism. These include: income generation; job creation; the rise of the informal economy, including crime and prostitution; increased migration to the primary city, along with spatial concentration on the coastal strip, and associated environmental impacts. In conclusion, the article considers the fat that the promotion of tourism has returned Havana to some of the conditions that existed in the city Socialist Revolution in 1959.