Workshop: Assessing the sustainability of coastal lagoons

Organisers:

The workshop is jointly organised by EuroLag, Future Earth Coasts1, Lagoons4Life2 and the Murray Foundation3

1 https://www.futureearthcoasts.org/about-us/
2 https://www.lagoonsforlife.com/about/
3 https://www.murrayfoundation.eu/

Contact organisers:

Alice Newton anewton.ualg@gmail.com, Esther Ollivier estherollivier87@gmail.com, Piotr Margoński pmargonski@mir.gdynia.pl

Target Audience:

Advanced researchers with access to extensive, multi-disciplinary data about one (or more) coastal lagoons. The workshop will be limited to 20 participants. Participants will be briefed prior to the workshop by the organisers on the type of data that will be necessary for the workshop to be productive.

Pre-registration form

Pre-registration deadline: 31 March 2023

Time: TBD

Room: TBD

Contex:

Coastal lagoons are complex, social-ecological systems that deliver a variety of ecosystem services to the benefit of human welfare and wellbeing. The sustainability of coastal lagoons depends on:

  1. good environmental and ecological status;
  2. appropriate economic exploitation, that minimises negative externalities;
  3. social equity and community-based management of natural resources;
  4. functional governance practices, from the local to the transnational scales.

Assessing the sustainability of coastal lagoons requires the identification of appropriate, locally adapted indicators for environmental and ecological status, economic exploitation, social equity and governance. The complexity of this multi-disciplinary task makes it difficult to present the results to a non-specialised audience, including stakeholders and decision-makers.

Aim of workshop:

To assess the sustainability of social-ecological coastal lagoon systems.

Specific Objectives:

  1. To identify appropriate locally adapted indicators
  2. To apply a uniform scale to the indicators (Bad-Excellent)
  3. To develop an assessment infographic assessing the sustainability of each lagoon
  4. To develop a conceptual diagram for each lagoon
  5. To identify the priorities for management in each lagoon
  6. To identify the commonalities and differences across the different lagoons
Example infographic Example conceptual diagram
Maria Esther Ollivier with IAN-Maryland Sonia Cristina with IAN-Maryland

Expected outputs of workshop:

At workshop:

  • A set of 10-20 infographics on the sustainability of the individual coastal lagoons
  • A set of 10-20 conceptual diagrams on the sustainability of the individual coastal lagoons

Post workshop:

  • A set of 10-20 articles to be submitted as a special issue on “Sustainability of Coastal Lagoons”

Target journal:

Anthropocene Coasts, a Springer, Open-access journal. https://www.springer.com/journal/44218

A set of graphical science-communication products such as conceptual diagrams and info-graphics for scientists to communicate with stakeholders and decision makers.

Expected outcomes:

The assessment of sustainability for 10-20 lagoons.

A common understanding of the communalities and differences across the different lagoons.

Background information:

Circles of Coastal Sustainability: A Framework for Coastal Management https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/12/4886