Special Issue "Sustainable Sea and Land Use and Regional Planning of Coastal Ecosystems"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Social Ecology and Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2022.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Ileana Espejel
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Ensenada, Mexico
Interests: coastal management; inter- and transdisciplinary studies; sustainable development
Dr. César Vázquez-González
E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
Instituto de Ciencias Marinas y Pesquerías, Universidad Veracruzana, Veracruz, México
Interests: coastal ecosystem service valuation; social–ecological resilience and vulnerability relationship to coastal disasters in the context of urban and regional planning
Dr. Alejandro Espinoza Tenorio
E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
Departamento de Ciencias de la Sustentabilidad, El Colegio del Frontera Sur, Campeche, Mexico
Interests: sustainable coastal; socioecological systems
Dr. Georges Seingier
E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor
Facultad de Ciencias Marinas, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Baja California, México
Interests: coastal planning; interdisciplinary studies; sustainable development

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, scientific literature has emphasized coastal social–ecological systems’ (SES) ability to adapt. In some geographic regions, SESs still depict high resilience, but in most of them, there is a growing undesirable vulnerability of coastal human communities to natural and anthropogenic disturbances. There is a lot to document, and evaluate, as to the diversity of local and regional solutions to prevent more coastal ecosystem losses or restore lost ecosystems and the result of increasing and changing pressure on sea and land use. Many countries have different kinds of marine and coastal protected areas and other strategies to preserve or manage coastal ecosystems, but these regional planning efforts in many countries remain unknown to individuals in coastal zones. This Special Issue offers the opportunity to present collaborative research and examine co-designed local solutions, co-management plans, co-designed policies, or co-generated knowledge as approaches to reach more sustainable coastal SES. Therefore, we invite coordinated “top–down” and “bottom–up” successful strategies to provide lessons learned and hope to coastal citizens and regional and local governments. This Special Issue welcomes papers evaluating all kinds of marine and coastal planning instruments and contrasts their conservation or management results with the contextual circumstances where these areas are embedded. A discussion is welcome on the shocks, stressors, thresholds, and trajectories of coastal social–ecological systems in temperate, arid–semiarid, and tropical coastal areas. We want to show the creativity of academia and communities to build more sustainable coastal zones.

Our aim is to emphasize the importance of land use change as an anthropogenic stressor and land planning to encourage the sustainable management of the coastal social–ecological systems integrated by ecosystems such as freshwater wetlands, mangroves, dunes, beaches, and reefs. More specifically, this issue is aimed at integral studies that show the importance of the interaction between societal elements and coastal ecosystem service management, and its relationship with land use change. More importantly, the results of manuscripts should offer specific proposals with alternatives regarding solving coastal territorial planning problems caused by public policies and/or climate change.

The purpose of this issue is to integrate conceptual–theoretical and study case manuscripts that offer new insights in relation to land use and planning and coastal social-ecological systems. Therefore, manuscripts should be focused but not limited to the following lines of research:

  • Ecosystem service assessment and monetary valuation, and tradeoff between land use change and coastal ecosystem conservation in the context of sustainable management;
  • Resilience and vulnerability assessment and its relationship with coastal ecosystem service management and land use change (resilience-related concepts such as connectivity, polycentric governance systems, diversity and redundancy, adaptive complex systems, encourage learning, broader participation, slow variables and feedbacks);
  • Relationship between potential effects of climate variability on coastal ecosystems and the sustainability of social–ecological systems;
  • Co-generation of knowledge, co-design of coastal policies or successful coastal co-management plans.

Most literature lacks emphasis on the process of regional planning. Therefore, especially welcome are papers documenting the lessons learned from small localities, different sizes or shapes of marine and coastal protected areas, coastal cities and small towns, and coastal planning policies experiences from temperate, semiarid–arid, and tropical climates. Additionally, welcome are the methods or processes of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, the opportunities that this kind of research offers to local or regional plans, and the ingenuity that team-working provides.

Dr. Ileana Espejel
Guest Editor

Dr. César Vázquez-González
Dr. Alejandro Espinoza Tenorio
Dr. Georges Seingier
Co-Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • community coastal planning
  • ecosystem-based management
  • ingenuity and innovation
  • resilience
  • worldwide coastal ecosystems

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

Article
Planning Ecotourism in Coastal Protected Areas; Projecting Temporal Management Scenarios
Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 7528; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13147528 - 06 Jul 2021
Viewed by 522
Abstract
Protected Areas (PAs) are critical instruments in preserving biodiversity and, because of their high-quality environmental conditions, they have always been attractive for ecotourism, the natural-based element of holiday activities that minimizes the “antagonistic” impacts of tourism on the environment. However, many PAs lack [...] Read more.
Protected Areas (PAs) are critical instruments in preserving biodiversity and, because of their high-quality environmental conditions, they have always been attractive for ecotourism, the natural-based element of holiday activities that minimizes the “antagonistic” impacts of tourism on the environment. However, many PAs lack a specific management plan or do not include the future effects of tourism activities on the local human population. In this study, we propose a methodology for the projection of ecotourism impacts in the short-,mid-, and long-term scenarios in PAs. Based on the scenarios proposed by the panel of experts through the cause‒effect method, local communities described the core problems in a PA and proposed the solutions to develop ecotourism. We used 44 legislative, natural, and expert opinion attributes to prioritize future sustained activities under environmental policies. Our results suggest a background and show the best performance and efficacy of ecotourism activities. In addition, these methods aim to solve challenges faced by the local communities, encouraging the generation of scientific knowledge and conservation and natural resources management associated with biodiversity. Full article
Article
Perceptions and Social Values Regarding the Ecosystem Services of Beaches and Coastal Dunes in Yucatán, Mexico
Sustainability 2021, 13(7), 3592; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13073592 - 24 Mar 2021
Viewed by 681
Abstract
The ecosystem services (ESs) approach has been used as a powerful tool for the analysis of socio-ecological systems to investigate the relationship between society and the environment. The aim of this article is to analyze the social perceptions of stakeholders, forms of use [...] Read more.
The ecosystem services (ESs) approach has been used as a powerful tool for the analysis of socio-ecological systems to investigate the relationship between society and the environment. The aim of this article is to analyze the social perceptions of stakeholders, forms of use (sociocultural and economic), and the conservation of beaches and coastal dunes in Yucatán, Mexico. Interviews were held with focus groups to analyze the forms of use, social perceptions of stakeholders, and the conservation of beaches and coastal dunes in Yucatán, Mexico. The results indicate that these ecosystems are important to different types of activities related to regulating, provisioning, and cultural services. However, degradation is identified as a consequence of contamination and land-use change. The main identified threats are natural phenomena, followed by the presence of garbage, human presence in natural environments, infrastructure construction, and privatization of beaches. The opinions (e.g., conservation, ecosystem services provision, drivers of change), emotions (e.g., joy, fear, sadness), and knowledge of the local community and tourists with respect to these ecosystems were evidenced. In general, there is an absence of conservation and sustainable management projects. However, community perceptions provide an opportunity to outline public conservation strategies in which the community, as a component of these socio-ecosystems, can be fully involved in their implementation. Full article
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