Beaches for the people: the Spanish/“socialist” model of beach management

In the Anthropocene, many beaches are managed for various purposes including amenity, conservation and coastal defense. The mechanisms for management have been described extensively in the literature, but the collective motivation behind management interventions has received little attention. This study describes contemporary beach management in Spain which has evolved organically, rather than via a central control, but which displays a convergent evolution of management approaches that result in broadly similar practice throughout the territory. A generalized model is presented that involves a hierarchy of interventions ranging from the maintenance of the physical integrity of the beach through to provision of public facilities and recreational amenities. This is identified as a “socialist” model, understood here as a system grounded in public ownership and focused on maximizing social benefit through the provision of amenity to citizens (rather than the derivation of economic benefit as characterizes management in France and Italy, for example). The management system is underpinned by public ownership of the coastal zone. The underlying physical integrity of beaches is maintained by national level interventions (principally nourishment and other engineering works) while the remaining actions (provision and maintenance of facilities and services) are decided and implemented by local authorities and subject to local politics. The approach focusses on maximizing the amenity value for beach users while economic exploitation of the beach resource (leasing of space to commercial enterprises e.g. equipment and food providers) is relegated to a secondary role, often in support of provision of the amenity value. Comparison with beach management systems in France and Italy shows that, under broadly similar environmental and socio-economic conditions, these countries place a greater emphasis on concession-based economic activities, resulting in different balances between public service provision and commercial use of the coastal resource.