A GIS-based vulnerability assessment of coastal natural hazards, state of Pará, Brazil

Abstract

Studies carried out in the NE coastal zone of the State of Pará (Brazil) have recorded, in the last 25 years, numerous evidence of natural impacts of the flood and erosion processes. As a consequence, diverse strategies and measures of population adaptation have been implemented but with limited success. Therefore, in order to subsidize the Coastal Zone Management Program of Pará, this paper aims to identify, assess and classify natural and socioeconomic vulnerabilities of this coastal zone by means of a Geographical Information Systems (GIS)-based composite coastal vulnerability index (CVI). In spite of the data problems and shortcomings, using ESRI's Arcview 3.2 program, the CVI score, to classify, weight and combine a number of 16 separate natural and socio-economic variables to create a single indicator provides a reliable measure of differences (5 classes) among regions and communities that are exposed to similar ranges of hazards. The results are presented in three maps referred to as Natural, Socioeconomic and Total Vulnerability. The confidence associated with the results obtained, the need to utilize another variables, and to frequently update the ones used already were analyzed and discussed.

A Decision Support Framework for the Risk Assessment of Coastal Erosion in the Yangtze Delta

“…Dawson et al (2009) also contested that probabilistic methods should be adopted to predict coastal erosion. Indeed for a given model, the validity of the result depends on many factors (Szlafsztein and Sterr, 2007). It is the reason why the scenario generator and the visualization toolkit are involved in the DSF in this paper.…”

“…And most of the existing decision support related to coastal erosion was potentially underlain by the complete physical, socioeconomic datasets and the deterministic solutions. In fact, in many developing countries it is usually possible that some key parameters affecting model output are unavailable (Szlafsztein and Sterr, 2007), and the relevant research is still inadequate. In the case of Yangtze Delta, most current published studies about coastal erosion were focused on the causes and types of erosion (Cai et al, 2009;Chen et al, 1988;Gao and Wang, 2008;Hori et al, 2002;Milliman et al, 1985;Yang et al, 2001Yang et al, , 2006.…”

Development of a GIS coastal land-use planning tool for coastal erosion adaptation based on the exposure of buildings and infrastructure to coastal erosion, Québec, Canada

“…Most of the respondents (19/22) indicated that a Web-based application would be ideal for navigating the database and for consulting the cartographic information. Much effort has gone into developing such tools for natural hazard management and prevention in recent years in order to facilitate the elaboration of emergency evacuation plans (Chakraborty et al 2005;Szlafsztein & Sterr 2007;Tate et al 2010;Le Cozannet et al 2014) or as a means of risk visualization and communication (Brown et al 2006). This option would also allow data to be updated from a single source.…”

Geo-environmental zoning using physiographic compartmentalization: a proposal for supporting sustainable decision-making

“…Thus, several approaches of geo-environmental fragility/ vulnerability evaluation that used GIS and remote sensing were developed over the last few years (e.g. Szlafsztein and Sterr 2007, Pandey et al 2008, Anfuso and Del Pozo 2009, Andrade et al 2010, Fernandes-da-Silva et al 2010, Ifeanyi et al 2010, Fernández and Lutz 2010 45'W ( Figure 1). In addition, we chose the study area due to the occurrence of several landscape units with different geological and geomorphological characteristics for application of the methodology, ranging from mountain escarpment areas in the Crystalline Basin to stretches of the alluvial plains of the Paraíba do Sul river, inserted in the Sedimentary Basin of Taubaté.…”