Most of the Gulf of Cadiz commercial species stocks, such as anchovy or shrimp, depend to a great extent on their connection with the nursery area located at the Guadalquivir estuary and neighbouring waters. Hence, the environmental conditions at this essential fish habitat ultimately have an effect on the Gulf of Cadiz fisheries. The Guadalquivir estuary supports a great number of anthropogenic activities such as agriculture, aquaculture, illegal fishing, mining or shipping. Consequently, these human sectors exert cumulative impacts over it’s nursery role. The social system around the estuary is especially complex and its network arrangement is characterised by homophilia patterns (i.e. preference for intrasectoral interactions). These social features result in a relatively low intersectoral connection, which does not help marine resources ecosystem-based or holistic management. Participative processes have proven useful in engaging stakeholders, encouraging intesectoral connections, and gaining a holistic understanding of the functioning of the system cognizant of trade-offs. Conceptual modelling is an intuitive tool, easy to use with stakeholders, suitable to extract Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) of the different stakeholders and to eventually co-create accepted and legitimated frameworks. In the SNAPQUIVIR project we are carrying out a participative process and, by means of mental modelling, co-creating the first conceptual model that couples the ecological and social facets of the Guadalquivir estuary-Gulf of Cadiz system

Póster presentado para el Symposium "Human Impacts on Marine Functional Connectivity" (HI-MFC 2023), celebrado los días 22-25 mayo de 2023 en Sesimbra (Portugal)