A SOCIO-ECONOMIC TOOLBOX OF ARTIFICIAL REEF PROJECTS

摘要

It is widely accepted that in sea bottom areas where there is a scarcity of rocky formations and declining marine fish due to fisheries pressure, the deployment of artificial reefs (ARs) is a possible way to mitigate the problem. If ARs have an ecosystem-based fisheries management goal that means their presence is believed to be a sine qua non condition to maintain the sustainability of coastal ecosystems. However, decisions relating to the deployment and management of ARs arguably need to be guidedby the dictum that 'an artificial reef that is not useful to people is not a successful reef. The issue of 'AR usefulness' is raised because there are many studies on reef assessment, but usually focusing solely on biological approaches. Thus, these approaches are usually not enough to prove or refute the above premise. So, it is of fundamental importance to involve the affected people, i.e., stakeholders. With that in mind, the present study presents a socio-economic 'toolbox' where it is intended to find out people's involvement, belief, attitude and behavior concerning artificial reefs deployment. The toolbox is based on a flexible research design and includes three types of assessment that can be done in the scope of social and economic evaluationof ARs, namely: (1) Monitoring and description, (2) Social analysis, and (3) Economic assessment. In each one there are used different data collection and measurement techniques.