FUZZY RULE-BASED MODEL FOR OPTIMAL MANAGEMENT OF MARINE PROTECTED AREAS: A CASE STUDY ON THE MARINE RESERVE CERBÈRE-BANYULS

Marine spatial planning (MSP) is considered as one of the most appropriate ways to create and manage marine protected areas (MPAs) around the world. However, conservation constraints and the increase in competition for limited space and resources can generate land use conflicts. The purpose of this study is to develop an approach based on fuzzy inference systems FIS in order to solve the problem of land use conflicts in the Marine Reserve Cerbère-Banyuls in France. The advantage of the proposed method is that expert scientific knowledge in coastal aquaculture activities and the GIS data can be incorporated into a geospatial model to create optimal maps for spatial distribution of activities in the MPAs. This method is applied to the reserve Cerbère-Banyuls and it demonstrated a good efficiency.