Colombia has approximately 379,954 hectares of mangrove forests distributed along the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea coasts. Such forests are experiencing the highest annual rate of loss recorded in South America and, in the last three decades, approximately 40,000 hectares have been greatly affected by natural and, especially, human impacts. This study determined, by the use of Landsat multispectral satellite images, the evolution of three mangrove forests located in the Colombian Caribbean Sea: Malloquín, Totumo, and La Virgen swamps. Mangrove forest at Mallorquín Swamp recorded a loss of 15 ha in the period of 1985–2018, associated with alterations in forest hydrology, illegal logging, urban growth, and coastal erosion. Totumo Swamp lost 301 ha in the period 1985–2018 associated with changes in hydrological conditions, illegal logging, and increased agricultural and livestock uses. La Virgen Swamp presented a loss of 31 ha in the period of 2013–2018 that was linked to the construction of a roadway, alterations of hydrological conditions, illegal logging, and soil urbanization, mainly for tourist purposes. Although Colombian legislation has made efforts to protect mangrove ecosystems, human activities are the main cause of mangrove degradation, and thus it is mandatory for the local population to understand the value of the ecosystem services provided by mangroves.
Litter abundance and typology were investigated at different beaches and mangrove forests at nine sites on the Colombian Caribbean and Pacific coasts. Average litter abundance on the Caribbean Sea beaches (1.42 items/m2–12.21 g/m2) and in mangrove forests (1.29 items/m2–28.72 g/m2) were greater than that of the Pacific Ocean beaches (0 items/m2–0 g/m2) and mangrove forests (1.13 items/m2–79.41 g/m2). The most abundant litter material was plastic, which represented 93.61% of the total litter content. According to the Clean Coast Index, the sites analyzed in the Caribbean Sea were “Moderate” to “Extremely Dirty”, while those in the Pacific Ocean were “Clean” to “Moderate Dirty”. The Magdalena River is considered the main source of litter on the Caribbean Sea coast, while on the Pacific Ocean coast, litter is essentially associated with the mismanagement of solid wastes. This study constitutes a baseline on the litter content of beaches and mangrove forests, and is useful for establishing sound strategies for their protection, restoration and conservation.
Beaches represent important economic resources linked to “Sun, Sea and Sand” tourism and, therefore, their water quality constitutes an issue of great relevance especially in developing countries. The main objective of this work was to determine the microbial quality of beach sediments along the Caribbean coast of the Department of Atlántico (Colombia) and its relationships with the existence of local sources of contamination (e.g., streams containing wastewaters), beach exposition to waves, the quantity of beach visitors—which is reflected by beach typology (e.g., urban, rural, etc.), the presence of tourist activities/infrastructures and the beach sand sedimentological characteristics. Along the study area, samples of beach sediments were gathered in beach face and backshore areas at 11 sectors and the microbiological counts of three faecal indicator bacteria, i.e., Escherichia coli, Enterococcus spp. and Clostridium perfringens, were determined. A homogeneous distribution was recorded along the coast of Escherichia coli and Clostridium perfringens in both beach face and backshore sediments, in the order of 5 and 2 log CFU/100 mL, respectively; Enterococcus spp. was, at places, not observed in backshore sediments. No relationships existed between, on one side, the counts of the faecal indicator bacteria considered and, on the other side, the presence of streams and tourist activities/infrastructures, beach typology, exposition to waves and the sedimentological characteristics of beach sands. Such results suggest a chronic contamination of beach face and backshore sediments linked to the heavily polluted sedimentological load of the Magdalena River.
The great importance of mangroves’ forest is linked to their capacity of resilience against natural and human impacts, this way playing a determinant function in the adaptation to climatic change related processes. At global scale, mangroves’ forests cover an area of 150,000 km2, 11% (≈16,500 km2) of them being located along the Pacific and Caribbean coasts of South America. About 70 species of mangroves exist around the World with 10 observed in South America, among them the most relevant are: Rhizophora mangle, Avicennia germinans, Laguncularia racemosa and Conocarpus erectus. Concerning mangroves’ cover loss, at global scale, an annual rate of 0.16% was observed between 2000 and 2012 with lower rates recorded in South America respect to Asia, Africa, North and Central America. This paper analyses the main effects of natural and human impacts on mangroves’ forests by means of examples from South America and several other countries. Concerning natural impacts special attention was devoted to: i) constant and ii) specific erosion processes (related to storms and tropical cyclones), both of them essentially affect Rizophora mangle since this specie occurs at the shoreline meanwhile strong winds recorded during hurricanes (with a category > 3 of the Saffir-Simpson scale) especially affects R. mangle and A. germinans, and iii) the effects of climatic phenomena such as “El Niño” and “La Niña” that produce variations in soil salinity that determinates the establishment and growth of a mangrove’s specie or an other. Concerning human impacts special attention was paid to illegal logging that, in the Northern Caribbean of Colombian coast essentially affectes L. racemosa, which wood is used by local population to build up cabins on the beaches for tourist purposes. Keywords: Coastal erosion, Hurricane, El Niño, Deforestation, Salinity.
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