Jhan, H.-T.; Chiang, H.-T.; Lin, Y.-F.; Liu, W.-H., and Ting, K.-H., 2018. Trade-off analysis for marine recreation activities management along the Tainan Gold Coast. In: Wang, D. and Guido-Aldana, P.A. (eds.), Select Proceedings from the 3rd International Conference on Water Resource and Environment (WRE2017). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 84, pp. 144–148. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.

Marine recreation activities have been flourishing in Taiwan recently. “Gold Coast” with a beautiful and long gold beach in Tainan City has excellent natural environmental conditions for marine recreation activities. However, how marine recreation activities coexist with offshore oyster farming becomes an important issue. This study explored the trade-off analysis of Tainan Gold Coast recreation activities with stakeholders' perspective, in order to make various sea uses coexist and develop. The approach of trade-off analysis adopts a framework of Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) to organize information and facilitate evaluation of the options and their impacts. This study developed 3 scenarios of “Gold Coast” sea use. The areas of oyster farming and marine recreation activities (with power and with non-power) along the “Gold Coast” were presented with different use proportions. The values of 3 scenarios based on social, economical and ecological criteria and their 6 indicators were derived with the contingent valuation method and official statistical data. Finally, this study used the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to gain the weights of 3 criteria and 6 indicators from stakeholders including oyster farmers, water recreation enthusiasts, local residents and officers in Tainan City. The findings indicate that the scenario C that oyster farming and marine recreation activities use the proportion of the waters area along “Gold Coast” as 3:7 over the conflicting zone is the optimum solution.