User Needs Analysis for the Definition of Operational Coastal Services

Serena Geraldini,Giorgio Bellotti,Antonello Bruschi,Andrea Taramelli

doi:10.3390/w13010092

Abstract

According to the global growth of the “Blue economy”, coastal zones are under pressure from both land and marine side economic activities. The fragmentation of sectorial interests and legislation along the coasts has led to the need for bridging knowledge (data/information and methods/tools) and governance (decision-makers at every level) in order to ensure sustainable economic development and social and ecosystem resilience. This poses the need for an interaction process that associates user needs to the European and national legislative framework to create a policy-oriented demand of Copernicus Earth Observation services in coastal areas. Such goals need a strong and effective system to monitor compliance and to assess the progress of the legislation. This study aims at identifying potential gaps in the current Copernicus product offer for the monitoring of the coastal sector through the elicitation of stakeholder requirements. The methodology is applied to the Italian landscape of users, but it is scalable at European level. The results provide a clear overview of the coastal user requirements, highlighting the common need of integrated information for the management, and represents the basis for defining the coastal services.

Highlights

In Europe, approximately 40% of the population lives within 50 km from the coast.Coastal zones are densely populated, exhibit high rates of inhabitant’s growth and urbanization, concentrate economic assets and critical infrastructures, support green and blue economy and, as a consequence, experience huge socio-economic and environmental changes.According to “The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development”(OECD) by 2030, the ‘Blue Economy’ could outperform the growth of the global economy as a whole, both in terms of added value and employment
Identification of the institutional users to be interviewed; organization of the questionnaire to be submitted to the institutional users selected in the previous phase; collection and homogenization of the survey answers, grouping them by type of user and their institutional duties, based on regulations; analysis of the gathered users’ requirements on the basis of regulations and requested parameters typology; prioritization of parameters based on the number of users and reference regulations; definition of the operational services to be implemented at national level, considering the gap between the needs and the available products (Copernicus services products and others)
As result of user requirements analysis, the required parameters were extrapolated, grouped in different typology classes (Supplementary Table S1) and linked to the European directives and national laws under which those parameters are required by public institutions, as shown in Table 2 and in the Sankey diagram in Supplementary Figure S2

Summary

Introduction

In Europe, approximately 40% of the population lives within 50 km from the coast.Coastal zones are densely populated, exhibit high rates of inhabitant’s growth and urbanization, concentrate economic assets and critical infrastructures, support green and blue economy and, as a consequence, experience huge socio-economic and environmental changes.According to “The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development”(OECD) by 2030, the ‘Blue Economy’ could outperform the growth of the global economy as a whole, both in terms of added value and employment. Coastal zones are densely populated, exhibit high rates of inhabitant’s growth and urbanization, concentrate economic assets and critical infrastructures, support green and blue economy and, as a consequence, experience huge socio-economic and environmental changes. Marine energy, marine biotechnology, coastal tourism, transport and food production sectors could offer unprecedented development and investment opportunities [1]. Such growth relies on the same marine resources that unsustainable economic activities are eroding. Pollution and overexploitation are compromising the marine and coastal environment; human activities such as shipping, resource extraction, urbanization, and fishing produce habitat loss, pollution, and accelerated coastal erosion; climate change effects (e.g., sea level rise) make coastal zones more vulnerable

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