The Sector Analysis as a Coastal Management Tool for Sustainable Tourism Development on the Mediterranean Coast of Morocco

Abstract

Beaches are ecologically valuable ecosystems and sites that attract many tourists from all over the world, therefore, knowledge of their environmental conditions to establish sound management strategies is of extreme relevance. This study aims to assess and classify 50 beaches through an innovative coastal management approach called “Sector Analysis”, which integrates Litter grading, the coastal scenic quality and beach typology in order to classify sites into one of three sectors: Green (high value sites), Red (low value sites) and Yellow (sites with contradictory values). Litter Grade makes it possible to classify a site according to the quantity of litter using four grades from “A” (low) to “D” (high amount). The Coastal Scenic Evaluation System (CSES) allows to classify sites into five classes, ranging from extremely attractive natural sites (Class I) to unattractive degraded and urbanized sites (Class V). This innovative methodology for sustainable coastal area management can be easily applied to any beach in the world. The results on Litter Grade and CSES considered in this paper were obtained from previous studies and used to obtain the Sector Analysis that showed only 8 sites (16%) are in the Green sector, 18 sites (36%) in the Red sector and 24 sites (48%) in the Yellow sector. The significant percentage of sites in the Red sector (one third of the sites studied) clearly indicates the degradation that the Moroccan Mediterranean coast has undergone due to considerable anthropogenic activities and the lack of adequate coastal management programs. In this study, various management interventions were proposed to conserve and improve the aesthetic quality of beaches and reduce the impact and presence of litter in the coastal areas.