Coastal management is "that process of managing a beach, whether by monitoring, simple intervention, recycling, recharge, the construction and maintenance of coastal control structures or by some combination of these techniques, in a way that reflects an acceptable compromise in the light of available finance, between the various coastal defence, nature conservation, public amenity and industrial objectives" (Micallef and Williams, 2002;Simm et al., 1996). This definition seems to consider the entire spectrum of coastal conflict in that it addresses social, economic and environmental aspects of beaches as socio-ecological systems (SES) (e.g. Defeo and McLachlan, 2005;Botero and Hurtado, 2009). This approach considered beaches as multidimensional systems linked with and affected by one or more social systems where natural, socio-economic and administrative components interact (Micallef, 1996;Micallef and Williams, 2002;Williams and Davies, 1999). Approaches to the management of beach as SES have traditionally focused on a very limited number of functions, such as beaches as summer playgrounds and buffer spaces for storms (James, 2000;Lozoya et al., 2014;Ariza et al., 2016). However, from the last century, beaches were expressly defined as SES especially due to new methodologies for capturing beach complexity in order to provide information Willingness to pay for management and preservation of natural, semi-urban and urban beaches in Italy Ilaria Rodella a, *
