Urbanisation on the coastline of the most populous and developed state of Brazil: the extent of coastal hardening and occupations in low-elevation zones

Abstract

Worldwide, coastlines have been replaced and altered by hard infrastructures to protect cities and accommodate human activities. In addition, human settlements are common and increasing in lowland areas threatened by coastal risk hazards. These urbanisation processes cause severe socioeconomic and ecological losses which demand policy reforms towards better coastal management and climate resilience. A first step in that direction is to comprehend the status of coastal hardening and occupation of vulnerable areas. Here, we mapped the coastline of the most populous and developed state of Brazil: São Paulo (SP). Our goal was to quantify the linear extent of natural habitats, artificial structures (AS), and occupations in low-elevation coastal zones (≤ 5 m) within 100 m from marine environments (LECZ100m) along the coastline and within estuaries. SP coast has a total extent of 244 km of AS, of which 125 and 119 km correspond to AS running along the coastline (e.g., seawalls, breakwaters) and extending from the shoreline into adjacent waters (e.g., jetties, pontoons, groynes), respectively. 63% of the total extent of AS is located in the most urbanised region. Breakwalls were the most common infrastructure (108 km), followed by jetties and wharves (~40 km each), and aquaculture and fishing apparatus (~24 km). Over 300 km of the SP coastline has inland occupations in LECZ100m: 235 and 67 km are adjacent to sandy beaches and estuarine/river margins, respectively. Coastal hardening is advanced in the central region of SP resulting from intense port activities and armoured shorelines. In other regions, much of coastal urbanisation seems to be driven by secondary usage of the cities, such as real estate development for beach houses and tourism. Our findings suggest that coastal urbanisation poses a major but often neglected source of environmental impact and risk hazards in SP and Brazil.