Assessing benthic ecological status of urban sandy beaches (Northeast Atlantic, Morocco) using M-AMBI

The benthic macrofauna was composed of a total of 28 taxa and revealed intra- and inter-beaches variations. Reference Conditions for the M-AMBI were selected according to historical reference condition combined to expert judgment based on historical data. Globally, M-AMBI worked well on assessing the ES under eutrophication stress due to excess nutrients input. The worst ES was recorded at PZ beach with most of time in bad ES. However, the spatio-temporal changes in the ES were not usually related to the various stressors despite the significant correlations observed between the M-AMBI and some physicochemical features of water and sediment. Sandy beaches are regarded as naturally stressed environments. The wide variations in their environmental conditions make it difficult to discern natural from human-induced changes. Therefore, the “Sandy Beach Quality Paradox” concept is proposed and will certainly be evolved concurrently with the assessment of the ES of sandy beaches. This first attempt on assessing the status of urban sandy beaches of Northeastern Atlantic (Morocco) should be considered as a first step towards more comprehensive and robust evaluation of the impact of human pressures on sandy beaches.