Landscape and vegetation responses to human impact in sandy coasts of Western Crete, Greece

Human activities have shaped the coastal environment of the Mediterranean basin for millennia through agriculture, husbandry and the deliberate use of fire. With the decline of agriculture, in recent decades, other factors have caused a more severe impact on the coastal landscapes. These factors are the large scale developments for tourism, the process of urbanisation, the increase of summer visitor numbers, and the introduction of exotic plants. The most heavily affected habitats are the sandy coastal systems, and coastal dunes in particular. The area of Western Crete presents a perfect example of these degradation processes. udy area comprises both natural coastal dune systems, as well as degraded beaches with high intensity human impact. The north facing coasts of the study area consist of several long stretching sandy beaches with well developed dune systems. However, in many cases these dunes are severely degraded due to uncontrolled building of tourist facilities right at the edge of the shore. To the west, it includes sites of natural dunes of outstanding beauty, which are designated for inclusion in the Natura 2000 network. both landscape and vegetation classification, to establish the relations between human impact and vegetation. Two different classifications, derived from these different data-sets are combined, in order to extract useful information on the value of landscape surveying on biodiversity estimation, and on the other hand, on the perspectives of using plant species as indicators of landscape change. e land unit groups are identified, according to human impact processes and structural landscape variation. These classes of land units correlate with specific plant communities that are recognised from the phytosociological analysis. Indicator species are defined that can explain the level of intensity of human impact for a stretch of beach. These indicator species often do not match the frequently used character species.