Costa-Sena

The Coastal Zone Management Plans in Portugal, the Algarve's region case

Alexandra Costa Sena

Algarve's Coordination Commission of Regional Development - CCDR-Algarve (PT)

The Portuguese coast extends for about 940 km, and is characterized by sandy beaches, dune systems, lagoons, estuaries and cliffs with different important ecosystems from the ecological and biophysical points of view and hosts about 53% of Portuguese human settlements.

The increasing pressure on coastal areas in the last decades demanded policies and instruments for coastal planning and management by the implementation of measures for a suitable use and development. Coastal Zone Management Plans that include a landward of 500 meters of the coast including public and private maritime domain, were developed for 9 sectors of the Portuguese continental coast (Fig.1). They provide a full analysis of the coastal system and delimitation of uses in relation to the carrying capacity of the shoreline.

The region of Algarve has 3 approved Coastal Zone Management Plans.

This poster will show the example of Burgau-Vilamoura (Plan 8), whose Main goals are:

Fig.1 - Portuguese Coastal Management Plans, Urban Waterfronts and Existent Erosion Problems.

1. Planning the coastal land uses and economic activities along the coast;
2. Classify the beaches and the bathing use regulation;
3. Promote and rise the quality standards within some strategic beaches from environmental and tourism viewpoints;
4. Assure nature protection and conservation

The coastal zone management plan intervention area corresponds to an outer extent of the inland boundary in a protection strip of 500 m wide, that can be either public or private.

The main interventions were in protecting the coastal zone from the massif occupation by land use restricted areas, in defining “hazard zones” to prevent conflicts between coastal erosion and human occupation, and in rehabilitation of beach supports Centers and Equipments.

To manage these plans it is being used at CCDR-Algarve a GIS application (Fig.2 SAL- Visualization) that allows the visualization of the geographic information, in vector and raster format, existing in the CCDR- Algarve database.
It makes possible the spatial analysis of the geographic information and the production of reports. It was developed appealing to pertaining MapObjects software from ESRI. Is constituted by: one graphical component, a bar of tools, a menu with several functions and alphanumeric components.

Fig. 2- SAL view

References:

Resolution of Cabinet n. º 33/99, of 27/4.
Portuguese Environmental Minister, 1999, Littoral Program, Lisbon.
Seixas Val Ferreira, A., 2003, Integrated management of the Coast - the challenge after conclusion of the Plans. Proceedings of the II Conference about Planning and Management of Portuguese Language Countries. Recife. Brasil.
Taveira Pinto, F., 2004. The Practice of Coastal Zone Management in Portugal, JCC 10: PP. 147-158. EUCC. The Coastal Union, The Netherlands.
Teixeira, S.B., 2005, Slope mass movements on rocky sea-cliffs: a power-law distributed natural hazard on the Barlavento Coast, Algarve, Portugal, Shelf Research, October, CCDR- Algarve, in press.