Mediterranean Coastal Landscape and Sustainable Tourism Development

During the last twenty years, Landscape has become an approach to understand ecological and cultural processes. As a result, Landscape scale becomes considered as a frame work for the analysis of sustainability. Mediterranean coastal landscapes have a deep ecological and cultural root. It is characterized by the coexistence of both natural environments and historical influences. The landscape is extremely sensitive and vulnerable to any transformation process. The main pressure is the infrastructure development associated with the modern tourism industry. The map of coastal line has exchanged through time in addition to natural and human impacts. This research tries to points out tourism development impact on the Mediterranean coastal landscape. The adopted strategy is: defining the current situation and changes occurring on new project in the coastal landscape line leading to identifying the exerted pressures on the Mediterranean region. Finally reaching an evaluation matrix and testing it on two case studies as a preliminary tool for evaluation of landscape projects using sustainability as a criterion.