Action plan concerning the ecosystem services of Barcelona’s coastline
Barcelona’s coastline provides key ecosystemic services: it regulates the climate, protects the infrastructures behind the beaches, provides food, is used for recreation, and so on.
Some of these services will also be key to tackling the adverse effects of climate change. Beaches and coastal parks, for example, can be a place of refuge from heat waves, since, apart from being the area with the lowest daytime temperatures in the city, there is also the sea where people can cool down.
The sea (including beaches) is, without a doubt, the ecosystem that provides the most value in terms of environmental services. The Beaches Round Table was created in 2017 as an internal City Council forum to rethink the management model for Barcelona’s beaches, bearing in mind that the city’s beach capacity is reaching its limit. The objectives set out in the Round Table were validated in the participatory forum of the Coastal Plan in December 2018.
Of particular note among them was the formulation of an action plan on ecosystem services with the aim of furthering our knowledge of them and determining the actions that need to be taken to strengthen them.
What are we doing?
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As part of this project, a study on the ecosystem services of Barcelona’s coastline was launched in 2020 and completed in March 2021.
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The document made a first conceptual approach to how the socio-environmental services of the Barcelona coastline are analysed. The study was carried out through a matrix of relationships between 28 socio-environmental services and 54 indicators. With regard to the area of work, the study has taken into account the backshore and the marine environment.
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The results of the study are presented from a dual perspective: by service and by beach. The city is currently following up on the implementation of the actions carried out under the Action Programme for the City’s Beaches.
