This is a measure of the available beach area per
beach user, and it can also be thought of as the maximum
number of people that can use an environment before an
unacceptable decline in quality of the ‘‘recreational experience’’
(Silva et al., 2008). For example, urban beaches with a large
number of beach users typically have a threshold carrying
capacity of between 3 m2/user and 6 m2/user (Micallef and
Williams, 2004; Roca et al., 2008). An area-to-user ratio less
than this results in a perceived reduction in the quality of the
beach as a recreational resource.