Assessment of the Spanish marine social-ecological associations and its implication for integrated management of coastal and marine systems

Resumen

The alarming rate of marine biodiversity loss calls for new strategies of understanding and accounting for human-nature relationships. Anthropogenic impacts are the main drivers of changes in coastal and marine systems (hereafter coastal systems), where more than 50% of the world’s human population lives. Such cumulative anthropogenic impacts are leading to a dangerous decline in the ecosystem functions and resilience of coastal systems. However, the lack of knowledge about how the social and ecological dimensions interrelate in the coastal systems may lead to failure in protecting, not only nature but also the society that relies on it.This thesis aims to contribute to the social-ecological knowledge of coastal systems by assessing the social-ecological associations of the Spanish coastal and marine communities. In doing so, it develops a methodological approach for defining and spatially identifying coastal and marine social-ecological systems, assesses the relationship between marine biodiversity and the socio-economic and marine environmental characteristics of the social-ecological systems, and detects the hotspots of social-ecological vulnerability in the Spanish temperate coastal system.The findings presented in this thesis show that applying innovative methods, it is possible to untangle the complexity of social-ecological interactions. This thesis identifies the associations between the socio-economic and marine environmental aspects that form the coastal marine social-ecological systems of the Mediterranean coast of Andalusia, and how these social-ecological aspects relate to biodiversity metrics. Deeping in these associations, the results of thisthesis identify the most social-ecological vulnerable areas in the Spanish coastline, which require immediate sustainable management actions. Within the context of global changes and biodiversity loss, this thesis challenges conventional studies with an innovative perspective that advance theunderstanding of social-ecological associations, and provide the needed knowledge to identify sustainable management strategies for building more resilient temperate coastal systems.