Impacts of climate change on the tourist-carrying capacity at La Playa beach (Sardinia, IT)

It is largely acknowledged that global mean sea level is rising and accelerating increasing low-lying coastal communities’ exposure and vulnerability. The IPCC AR5 identified the Mediterranean Sea as one of the semi-enclosed seas with projected high rate. Impacts of sea level rise (SLR) at local scale affect the number of visitors in highly vulnerable beaches and previous paper have quantified these adverse effects. In this paper we want to say that coastal climate change is not just sea level rise and other climatic factors can affect the optimal beach carrying capacity in complex and uncertain ways. Specifically, the paper shows that the effects of selected climatic factors as wave, rainfall and wind can be opposite to that of SLR and the beach management could even benefit from those trends. •The paper is part of a large research on the management and planning of vulnerable beaches in Sardinia (IT) under climate change.•The main objective of the study was to provide a comprehensive quantification and characterisation of the impacts of climate change on optimal beach carrying capacity.•To the best of our acknowledge, this is the first paper that considers multiple climatic factors. This is in accordance with IPCC advices for more comprehensive studies, wider than sea level rise.•We found that in Southern Sardinia the effects of selected climatic factors as wave, rainfall and wind can be opposite to that of sea level rise and the beach management could even benefit from those trends with more facilities and services.