Exploring climate change effects in Euro-Mediterranean protected coastal wetlands: the cases of Aiguamolls de l’Empordà, Spain and Kotychi-Strofylia, Greece

Abstract

Climate change is widely recognised as a serious threat, especially to some Mediterranean wetlands; therefore, their ongoing protection is of great concern. Aiguamolls de l’Empordà (north-east Catalonia, Spain) and Kotychi-Strofylia wetland (western Greece) are considered important coastal wetlands deserving protection both by European and national authorities. The main aim of this study was to explore stakeholders’ perceptions on local climate change there and to contrast these perceptions with some of the local meteorological data from the Estartit station (near Aiguamolls de l’Empordà) and Andravida station (near Kotychi-Strofylia). Semi-structured interviews with thirty-six stakeholders from both coastal wetlands have been conducted with the aim of understanding the perception and constraints facing those currently engaged in a wide range of social, political, environmental and economic activities in both territories. The research results showed that major climate change effects such as increased air temperature, precipitation change, prolonged droughts and shifting seasons were more pronounced over the past twenty years and are of particular concern in both wetlands and their surrounding areas. Moreover, the stakeholders from Spain had a higher awareness of sustainability issues than those from Greece. It is worth mentioning that about two-thirds of the interviewed stakeholders in both areas perceived their coastal wetlands as unsustainable. In addition, stakeholders from the Greek area had higher willingness for not emigrating from their territory than those from Spain. Finally, about half of the stakeholders indicated that they are in favour of natural adaptation measures based on technical solutions such as setting up sand dunes and beach barriers.

Keywords:

• climate change
• coastal wetland
• Aiguamolls de l’Empordà
• Kotychi-Strofylia
• Mediterranean Europe
• stakeholder’s local perception

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Spanish Government Ministry for Research and Innovation [grant number CSO2009-13909] and by AGAUR, Research Agency of the Catalan Autonomous Government, Spain [grant number FI-DGR 2011].

Notes

1. Unlike the more updated Spanish station, currently the annual averagemeteorological data at the Greek station is only available until 2002–2003. This study does not attempt to analyse climate change trends, rather these data present the available measurements of climate variables in the observed areas. As such, they provide basic information on climate conditions in both coastal wetlands and aid in better understanding perceptions of climate conditions among the stakeholders.

2. In future research, it would be interesting to widen up this analysis and fully achieve the third objective by refining current theory or proposing, if necessary, a new theoretical perspective.

3. In each quote, details on the stakeholders’ country of residence (GR stands for Greece and SP for Spain), main sector of activity (Economic, EC; Public Administration, PA; Environment, ENV), gender (female/male) and age (years old) are provided.