Papers

Coastal zones are socially and economically very important, leading to a high pressure for its permanentdevelopment. Simultaneously, these zones are subject to several maritime hazards, able to causecoastal erosion. Therefore, a thoughtful management of these zones is required in order to protectsociety, economy and natural environments. This work presents a GIS-based tool that aims to provide aquick assessment to coastal erosion risk, called CERA: Coastal Erosion Risk Assessment. The simpleprocesses and small amount of data required by the tool provides a viable alternative to other methods,which are often more complex and difficult to apply. The assessment method used in CERA is divided intwo parts. The first part is a vulnerability assessment, which combines several parameters that influencecoastal erosion, each being classified in a scale of 1e5. The second part, a consequence assessment,follows the same procedure, but considering socio-economic aspects. Then, a risk matrix is applied todetermine a risk classification, also divided in 5 classes, from I to V. Aveiro, in Portugal, and Macanetaspit, in Mozambique, were selected to test the application. Data was gathered for both locations. Whilein Aveiro it was used a considerable amount of available georeferenced data, for the Macaneta spit thedata was mainly prevenient from previous publications and local expert knowledge. The results showthat both study areas have similar vulnerabilities to coastal erosion, with classes IV and V dominatingalong the areas closer to the shoreline. On the other hand, the consequence classification in Aveiro ishigher than in Macaneta, resulting in a higher risk level in several regions in Aveiro district. The higherlevel of detail in Aveiro data also resulted in a more even distribution across all class levels in theresults.©