“…Indicators can also be used to assess the effectiveness of the actions and policies implemented, by measuring progress towards environmental targets (OECD, 1993). The PSR has also been used by other authors (e.g Bricker et al, 2003;Ou and Liu, 2010) for coastal issues. EEA (2003) defines each category of the DPSIR framework as follows: driving forces describe the social, demographic and economic developments in societies and the corresponding changes in life styles, overall levels of consumption, and production patterns; pressure indicators describe developments in release of substances (emissions), physical and biological agents, the use of resources and the use of land by human activities; state indicators give a description of the quantity and quality of physical phenomena (such as temperature), biological phenomena (such as fish stocks) and chemical phenomena (such as atmospheric CO 2 concentrations) in a certain area; the changes in state produce impacts on the functions of the environment, such as human and ecosystem health, resources availability, losses of manufactured capital, and biodiversity; and finally responses are the actions taken by groups (and individuals) in society as well as the governments' attempts to prevent, compensate, ameliorate or adapt to changes in the state of the environment.…”