Get ready for presentation

Subtask Description:
Prepare your presentation.

Action points of the implementation:

Area:
Guadiana Estuary, Portugal (& Spain)

Policy Issue:
Management of the discharges of untreated wastewater into the estuarine environment

Human Activities:
Energy production, tourism, urban activity, agriculture and livestock farming, aquaculture.

General Information:
The estuary is the natural border between Portugal and Spain. On both sides of the estuary, especially in Spain, urban development is taking place, mainly associated with tourism and threatens to increase the inputs of pollutants, namely nutrients and bacteria. Nutrient input is expected to change, not only due to fertilizer application on golf courses, but also due to the river discharge from a large dam, which has accumulated nutrients during its filling. On the Portuguese side, the construction of a large-scale WWTP, designed to serve several urban areas, was successively delayed since it is located within a protected area. The main stakeholder concerns relate to asymmetric development strategies of the two countries and the impact of activities taking place in the watershed on the estuarine and coastal water quality, which has consequences on tourism attractiveness, fisheries, or traditional salt farming.

Example of Implementation:

The presentation that was prepared for the Consultation and Analysis process of the Guadiana Estuary SAF implementation was designed to have two parts: one focused on the ICZM concept (Figure 1) and a second one on the SAF development in the area (Figure 2).
The first part allows understanding what the stakeholders’ ICZM concept is. On the end of this step, a SWOT analysis is undertaken, collecting stakeholder’s input, to shed light on the path towards ICZM both nationally (Portugal) and in the particular case of the Guadiana Estuary, contributing also in the “ice-breaking” for the following discussion of the model results.


Figure 1: Selected slides of the presentation of the Guadiana estuary team, focused on the ICZM concept.

The second part is the most important in what regards the model presentation. The SAF methodology is recapitulated, reiterating the stepwise logic of the SAF implementation, along whit the work done by the scientific team of the Guadiana Estuary. This logic allows demonstrating the importance of scaling down the complexity as needed to model the estuarine system. It also permits the explanation of the basic assumptions established in the model construction. The limitations that a stakeholder could find in the model are taken into account by recognizing what kind of answers the model could produce and what was their meaning, if the simulated conditions and assumptions were maintained as such. The model was not intended to be a precise predictive tool, but rather a tool for understanding how the integrated estuarine system works and allow some exploratory analysis.

 
Figure 2: Selected slides of the presentation for the SAF development in the Guadiana estuary.

In what regards the model presentation and its results, the underlying equations and modelling queries are omitted, since it was assumed that the model was scientifically robust. The main idea was to give space for discussion, promoting a transition to the deliberation process.

Contact: André Mascarenhas, apmascarenhas@ualg.pt.