The Integrated Territorial Investment (ITI) of the Mar Menor as a model for the future in the comprehensive management of enclosed coastal seas

Abstract

The Mar Menor, a coastal lagoon in south-eastern Spain of high environmental value and protected by the Natura 2000 network, suffered an intense phenomenon of eutrophication in 2015. This phenomenon generated a change of colour and important increase in the turbidity of its waters, which caused the loss of 85% of its marine vegetal cover in 2016 and great social alarm. The various regulations and tools of environmental protection that exist have not worked properly to avoid the anthropization of this enclosed coastal sea, which is subjected to a varied catalogue of human activities that encompass mass tourism, agriculture, mining, fishing or the important presence of ports and infrastructures, among others. In this context, the Integrated Territorial Investment (ITI) of the Mar Menor is put in place as an innovative model of integrated strategy for coastal zone management (ICZM) to overcome the shortcomings of previous management systems. This paper analyzes the process to implement this new model of comprehensive governance in the Mar Menor. The work is based on the use of participatory mechanisms for collaboration with stakeholders, in order to reach an integrated diagnosis and propose comprehensive solutions that involve all actors related to the current situation. The model performs the socio-ecological system of the Mar Menor (SESMM) that physically surpasses the geographic surface of the lagoon managed by traditional environmental tools. In this way, four different areas of influence of the lagoon are diagnosed and integrated into a sectoral action plan with the help of GIS tools in a process called "GIS participatory mapping”. The analysis carried out shows how the origin of the lagoon's main problems often lie many kilometres away from the lagoon itself and thus the situation needs to be addressed from a multidisciplinary perspective to find effective solutions. The results will help us set up a new management framework to achieve the recovery of the lagoon and sustainable future cohabitation among the existing activities. The approach taken (which can be easily exported to other coastal areas with complex environmental problems associated with diffuse anthropization) shows the importance of proposing analysis methodologies that are capable of involving all stakeholders to achieve sustainable solutions over time.