The economy of the archipelago is mainly based on fishing and tourism. The total area of the MPA is 53,992 ha and with a coastline of 74 km the El-MPA is one of the largest marine reserves in Europe. The project also entailed the spatial representation of both the ecological and economic value of natural capital within the investigated MPAs to support marine spatial planning (MSP).Įstablished in 1991 by the Italian Ministry of the Environment, the Egadi Islands MPA (hereafter EI-MPA) is located off the western coast of Sicily and surrounds three islands named Favignana, Levanzo, and Marettimo, and two islets named Maraone and Formica. The purpose of the project was to carry out a biophysical and economic assessment of natural capital stocks and ecosystem services flows, while also considering the impacts generated by human activities taking place within the MPAs. In 2014, the Italian Ministry of the Environment and Protection of Land and Sea financed a 4-year research programme entitled “Environmental Accounting in Italian Marine Protected Areas” (EAMPA), based on the implementation of an environmental accounting system for all twenty-nine Italian MPAs.
Are there experiences of accounting for biophysical value of natural capital in MPAs?.How can conservation scenarios for MPAs be accounted for in MSP?.In conclusion, this study showed the importance of integrating environmental accounting with conservation planning to support effective strategies for ecological protection and sustainable management of human activities. The comparison between the scenarios highlighted the importance of taking into account human activities in marine spatial planning (MSP), allowing the identification of key areas for natural capital conservation. For this integration, two different scenarios were considered, with and without accounting for human uses in the EI-MPA. In addition, by using Marxan software, the results of the environmental accounting were integrated with spatial data on main human uses to identify key areas for natural capital conservation, taking into consideration the trade-offs between protection measures and human exploitation. In this study, the biophysical and non-market monetary value of natural capital of the Egadi Islands MPA (South Italy) was assessed through the emergy accounting method. Franzese, published in Ecological Modelling 361 (2017) pp. This practice summarizes the results of the scientific paper "Integrating natural capital assessment and marine spatial planning: A case study in the Mediterranean sea" by F.