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Sea-level rise (SLR) and flooding are among the climate change stressors challenging human society in the twenty-first century. Many coastal areas and cities are implementing innovative solutions to mitigate flood risks and enhance resilience. Venice has recently developed a system of storm surge mobile barriers, known as the MoSE (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico or Experimental Electromechanical Module). This study aims to investigate the economic viability of MoSE operations in light of the potential future evolution of SLR. To conduct a cost-benefit analysis, a system dynamics model is utilised to assess the impact of MoSE operations on economic and residential activities of Venice and its port. Simulations are conducted until the end of the century, considering two SLR scenarios. The results suggest that the economic benefits largely outweigh the combined costs of investment and foregone port revenues resulting from the MoSE closures. Nevertheless, the increasing number of closures due to SLR seriously challenges the viability of the infrastructure in the medium to long term. Even more importantly, very frequent closures will have serious impacts on the quality of the lagoon ecosystem. These findings suggest a revision and stronger integration of the city’s safeguarding strategies, including the increase of the MoSE closure level officially set at 110 cm, and other coordinated interventions, such as sewer system consolidation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Natural disasters are an important deterrent factor for tourism activities from both supply and demand perspectives. This paper studies the short-term effect of a volcano eruption on hotel demand, supply and hospitality labour in La Palma (Spain), an island economy that is highly dependent on the tourism sector. Based on a monthly panel dataset, we employ seemingly unrelated difference-in-differences (SUR-DiD) to identify the distinct responses of these three outcomes both during and post eruption. We are particularly interested in examining the asymmetry in their elasticities to the shock, which serve as indicators of disaster resilience. Potential spillover effects on nearby islands are also examined. We find that the eruption resulted in significant yet asymmetrical drops in international demand, number of hotels opened, and hospitality workers hired. Our findings inform about the resilience of the tourism industry to natural disasters, offering relevant insights about heterogeneous effects depending on exposure to the event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coastal amenities are public goods that represent an important attraction for tourism activities. This paper studies the capitalization effects of beach characteristics using hedonic pricing methods. We examine the implicit economic value of several beach characteristics like sand type, width, longitude, accessibility, or frontage in the Airbnb rental market. Using data for 16,663 Airbnb listings located in 67 municipalities of the Balearic Islands (Spain) during the summer of 2016, together with detailed information about the attributes of 263 beaches, our modelling approach considers interaction terms between the beach amenities and distance to the closest beach. Controlling for a set of listings' structural characteristics, host attributes and municipality fixed effects, we find that Airbnb guests attach economic value to beach length, the presence of vegetation, the type of coastal frontage and beach accessibility and exclusivity. However, there is no evidence of capitalization effects associated with beach width or the type of sand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We applied an intermediate disturbance-complexity approach to the land-use change of cultural landscapes in the island of Mallorca from c. 1850 to the present, which accounts for the joint behaviour of human appropriation of photosynthetic capacity used as a measure of disturbance, and a selection of land metrics at different spatial scales that account for ecological functionality as a proxy of biodiversity. We also delved deeper into local land-use changes in order to identify the main socioeconomic drivers and ruling agencies at stake. A second degree polynomial regression was obtained linking socio-metabolic disturbance and landscape ecological functioning (jointly assessing landscape patterns and processes). The results confirm our intermediate disturbance-complexity hypothesis by showing a hump-shaped relationship where the highest level of landscape complexity (heterogeneity connectivity) is attained when disturbance peaks at 50-60 %. The study proves the usefulness of transferring the concept of intermediate disturbance to Mediterranean cultural landscapes, and suggests that the conservation of heterogeneous and well connected land-use mosaics with a positive interplay between intermediate level of farming disturbances and land-cover complexity endowed with a rich bio-cultural heritage will preserve a wildlife-friendly agro-ecological matrix that is likely to house high biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]