Mapping the environmental risk assessment of marinas on water quality: The Atlas of the Spanish coast

Abstract Recreational sailing sector has an impact on water quality in marinas. This study proposes a standard procedure to assess the environmental risk of marinas on water quality. Risk is assessed through integrating environmental pressures, environmental conditions and societal responses (i.e. the Pressure-State-Response model). Pressures are estimated considering the main driving forces: navigation, port, dredging and external activities. State is estimated through combining the susceptibility, the ecological value and naturalness. Response is estimated through environmental management instruments and adopted measures. Managers and authorities can hierarchically classify marinas from a multi-scale spatial framework. This tool is particularly powerful for generating local, regional or national atlases to prioritize environmental planning actions. The method is applied to 320 marinas along the Spanish coast. This implementation confirms the usefulness, versatility and adaptability of this procedure as a tool for the environmental management of marinas.