Co-created Climate information with local agents for nautical sports activities in the central-western Mediterranean

Coastal Tourist destinations need to adapt to climate variability and change to maintain their tourist competitiveness and appeal. To do this, it is crucial to know the climatic potential of the activities which the destination offers and to manage the location’s natural resources. The Sustainable development goals (SDG) offer guidelines for the development of a tourist destination. In the TURLIT-ODS project, we aim to contribute directly to SDG 3, Good health and well being; SDG 8, decent work and economic growth; SDG 12, Responsible consumption and production and SDG 13, Climate Action.

The last decades have seen advances in climate services for multiple fields. Despite this, the determination of the expected optimal days for different nautical sports activities around the central-western Mediterranean has not been done yet.

The present research explores, through a co-creation process with local agents, how the atmospheric/oceanic conditions influence nautical sports activity development. With the gained knowledge, we computed the optimal expected days for the specific activities identified by the stakeholders using ocean buoy data and wind and wave data from the SIMAR numerical model owned by Puertos del Estado.

Thanks to this approach, we transform raw data into structured information to provide the knowledge of optimal expected days for different nautical sports activities: sailing, stand-up paddling, kayaking, windsurfing, swimming in open waters, diving, snorkeling, water walking, underwater fishing, SUP- yoga, rowing, kitesurfing, surfing, wing foil, jet ski and other recreative uses (like the banana boat).

The computation of the optimal days for each one of these activities along Tarragona’s province coast allows us to understand the availability of that conditions and assist decision-making by looking at information that facilitates the definition of diversification strategies of the tourist activities.

By considering the meteorological-oceanographical conditions of a territory and, according to the results related to a destination, new tourist products and/or redesigned products offered are depicted. In this way, the destination of Tarragona’s province makes a step closer to the path of the sustainability of their leisure and tourist activities settled on the shore.

We acknowledge  Diputació Provincial de Tarragona for funding the project TURLIT (T22240S), Puertos del Estado (Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda of Spain), which provided the data for this study, and the Municipality of Calafell for supporting the project and facilitating spaces to generate the co-creation process.