Coastalization patterns in the Mediterranean: A spatiotemporal analysis of coastal urban sprawl in tourism destination areas

Under the current climate change scenery, coastalization, i.e. a linear-type of urban sprawl along the coastal zone, has become a key planning and policy concern at a global scale. Such a coastal urban sprawl trend seems to be further intensifying by, among others, mass tourism development in coastal destinations. This is evident by the abundance of relevant examples, being detected, among others, in the Mediterranean region. Taking into consideration the extreme pressure of the coastalization trend on land/marine ecosystems and its impacts on sustainability and resilience objectives, the focus of this research is on the development of a spatiotemporal and data-driven methodological approach that is capable of quantifying the dynamics of coastal urban sprawl. The proposed approach is grounded on a set of spatial metrics and a combination of the multitemporal Global Human Settlement Layer and the Corine Land Cover data; and is tested in four Mediterranean highly-rated tourism destinations in Spain, France, Italy and Greece. The variation of spatial metrics along different time spots and distinct distance buffers from the coast, unveils diversifying coastalization typologies and urban sprawl patterns; and provides input for more informed and place-based policy decisions on sustainable coastal land management. The proposed approach is easily replicable to other coastal regions as well for capturing/quantifying aspects of urban sprawl and coastalization dynamics and supporting relevant evidence-based decision-making.

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Lagarias A. y Stratigea A. Coastalization patterns in the Mediterranean: A spatiotemporal analysis of coastal urban sprawl in tourism destination areas. Springer Nature, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-022-10756-8

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Resource type Article
Date of creation 2024-11-05
Date of last revision 2024-11-05
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Metadata identifier 7287fa4c-1758-587b-900e-9ed24a4a0c04
Metadata language Spanish
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High-value dataset category Earth observation and environment
ISO 19115 topic category biota
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Name of the dataset creator Lagarias, A. y Stratigea, A.
Name of the dataset editor Springer Nature
Other identifier DOI: 10.1007/s10708-022-10756-8
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Email of the dataset creator lagarias@iacm.forth.gr
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