land Article Coastal Scenic Beauty and Sensitivity at the Balearic Islands, Spain: Implication of Natural and Human Factors Alexis Mooser 1,2, Giorgio Anfuso 2,* , Lluís Gómez-Pujol 3, Angela Rizzo 4 , Allan T. Williams 5 and Pietro P. C. Aucelli 1 1 Department of Science and Technology (DiST), Parthenope University, 80143 Naples, Italy;
[email protected] (A.M.);
[email protected] (P.P.C.A.) 2 Faculty of Marine and Environmental Sciences, University of Cádiz, Polígono Río San Pedro s/n, Puerto Real, 11510 Cádiz, Spain 3 Earth Sciences Research Group, Department of Biology, University of the Balearic Islands, Ctra. Valldemossa km 7.5, 07122 Palma, Spain;
[email protected] 4 Department of Earth Sciences and Geo-Environmental, University of Bari “Aldo Moro”, 70122 Bari, Italy;
[email protected] 5 Department of Architecture, Computing and Engineering, University of Wales: Trinity Saint David (Swansea), Mount Pleasant, Swansea SA1 6ED, UK;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract: Coastal areas globally are facing a significant range of environmental stresses, enhanced by climate change-related processes and a continuous increase of human activities. The economic benefits of tourism are well-known for coastal regions, but, very often, conflicts arise between short- term benefits and long-term conservation goals. Among beach user preferences, five parameters of greater importance stand out from the rest, i.e., safety, facilities, water quality, litter and scenery; Citation: Mooser, A.; Anfuso, G.; the latter is the main concern of this study. A coastal scenic evaluation was carried out in the Balearic Gómez-Pujol, L.; Rizzo, A.; Williams, Islands and focused on two major issues: coastal scenic beauty together with sensitivity to natural A.T.; Aucelli, P.P.C.