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MEDITERRANEAN AREA/COASTAL DEGRADATION


source: www.panda.org/downloads/
europe/medpotourismreportfinal_
ofnc.pdf

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coastal degradation

A number of coastal areas around the Mediterranean are under extreme pressure from the high number of tourists they receive every year:
  • one study cited by EEA (2001) suggests that 3/4 of the coastal sand dunes between Spain and Sicily have disappeared as a result of urbanisation linked to tourism development;


  • building tourist infrastructures too close to the shore and especially on the shore dunes is accelerating the process of beach erosion.
Tourism intensity contributes to the degradation of certain sensitive wetlands near tourist hotspots:
  • OECD/IUCN (1996) states that “some estimates show that the world may have lost 50% of the wetlands that existed in 1900”. According to data from the European Commission (1995) overall wetland losses exceeding 50% of original area have been reported by France, Greece, Italy and Spain.
Wetland disappearance or degradation contributes to the decline of species that depend on them to survive:
  • the number of water birds has decreased by 46% during the last 15-20 years and 20 globally threatened bird species live in the region (UNDP, 1999).
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