Decadal shifts in beach user sand availability on the Costa Brava (Northwestern Mediterranean Coast)

Beaches are the main asset of tourist destinations in the Northwestern Mediterranean. When developing beach management frameworks, managers request reliable information for decision-making. Frequentation patterns are one of the main, environmentally significant aspects to be considered. We discuss the use of frequently visited beaches in the light of increases in tourist frequentation and overcrowding problems. This paper presents a photographic protocol to obtain baseline information on frequentation patterns to measure: sand availability per beach user, number of users, user time on the beach, and turnover coefficients. A comparison of beach frequentation patterns is made over an 18-year period. Although the resident population, the number of secondary homes and associated tourism activities increased sharply over this period, only a slight increase was observed in the number of users. Beach users may have restructured their behaviour and now substitute some of the time previously spent on beaches for other leisure activities.