9.7 Environmental considerations

As a general consideration and key issues on the interaction among aquaculture, capture fisheries and the environment in Spanish coastal lagoons, it is observed that in most of lagoons aquaculture does not exist and fishing activity is usually unimportant.

Thus, among the Mediterranean lagoon areas analysed, in only two of them there are aquaculture and fisheries activities, and the rest are just coastal wetlands where fisheries is practically missing. Usually when the aquaculture activity is abandoned, the marsh tends to dry out and lose the flood, and consequently the productivity is lower.
Regarding the fishing activities performed in lagoon areas, in general there is a problem of control over the catch. Indeed it is very difficult to obtain data on catches and therefore it is difficult to estimate the utilization of natural resources.
An important aspect is that all Mediterranean coastal lagoons are protected with a normative figure; however, all of them must improve their integrated management for sustainability of ecosystems.