Socioeconomic and climate scenarios for the Mar Menor-Campo de Cartagena socioecosystem

The five scenarios describe plausible changes in 15 external drivers of the socioecosystem of the Mar Menor and surrounding Campo de Cartagena between 1964 and 2070. These scenarios were developed for evaluation of their impacts on Key Performance Indicators of sustainability using a simulation model based on System Dynamics. This model, developed by Martínez-López et al (2022) can be consulted here.

Historic data combined with the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) from the IPCC report ‘Global warming of 1.5°C’ and the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs), were used as starting point to develop the model-specific scenarios. The five scenarios are based on SSP 1, SSP2, SSP4 and SSP5 in combination with emission scenarios that will keep global temperature rise below 1.5ºC. The BAU scenario represents a combination of SSP2 without any climate change.

The detailed documentation of SSPs from O’Neil et al (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.01.004) and subsequent expert interviews and input received during stakeholder workshops organised in the framework of the COASTAL project were used to prepare the region-specific time-series of the 15 variables for the Mar Menor and surrounding Campo de Cartagena.

The 15 external drivers are:

Agricultural revenue per hectare

Growth rate of agriculture

Percentage of nutrients that are metabolized by the native lagoon ecosystem

Average excess of fertilizer use

Yearly effectiveness in nutrients reduction of nutrients, soil and water retention measures

Electricity Price

Mean number of hours per day of photovoltaic electricity production

Photovoltaic energy facilities growth rate in Megawatts installed

Growth rate of tourism

Average percentage of groundwater desalinated

Agricultural water demand per hectare

Catchment water sources

Urban wastewater treatment plant effluents

Yearly average of sea water desalination

Amount of water transferred from the Tagus river (RCP15ATS)