Tourism carrying capacity assessment as a tool to support coastal management: a pilot survey at two mass tourism beaches

Dissertação mest., Gestão da Água e da Costa, Universidade do Algarve, 2010

Coastal resources are an important component for recreational activities. With increasing tourism activities in the world, beaches in several parts of the world are getting each time much crowded with the resulting threats to local ecosystems and local people, what calls for a much appropriate resource management practices. This project attempted to outline and describe the carrying capacity process as a support tool for coastal management. This research aimed to determine the recreational carrying capacity of Faro Beach (Portugal) and Tofo Beach (Mozambique), based on the combination of the tourist carrying capacity assessment framework developed by Cifuentes (1992) and the PAOT approach (Manning, 2002) and supported by field surveys, tourist counts, on-site biophysical characteristics and questionnaires. Results showed that physico-ecological carrying capacity should be between 1,491 and 2,982 visits/day (at Faro Beach) and between 5,301 and 10,601 visits/day (at Tofo Beach) with impact acceptability curves being 305 and 608 tourists (for local people and tourists respectively, at Faro Beach), and 358 and 714 (for local people and tourists respectively, at Tofo Beach). These results suggest that the physico-ecological carrying can be applied for ecosystem management, whilst the socio-cultural carrying capacity should be addressed when management objectives are tourists and beach users. Importantly it is necessary to address the highest level of support showed to prospective managerial options.