A decision support system for the management of coastal lagoons

The correct management of coastal lagoon areas with anthropic exploitation is a difficult task for local authorities. Socio-economic interests and environment preservation are typically contrasting objectives between which a suitable trade-off must be achieved. The solution of this problem requires the development of interdisciplinary and multicriteria approaches. Motivated by future application to the Lagoon of Sacca di Goro (Italy), this paper proposes the architecture of a Decision Support System (DSS) for the management of coastal lagoon areas characterized by shellfish farming and agriculture. The DSS integrates a dynamic model for scenario simulations, the computation of several indicators for sustainability analysis and an optimization model for optimal resource allocation. Special emphasis is devoted to the definition of the optimization problem, which takes into account both the socio-economic and the environmental aspects. A numerical example shows the features of the proposed DSS.