Impacts of coastal works on the coastline: The Case of the Port of Açu, Municipality of São João da Barra, Brazil

Abstract

From the perspective of coastal dynamics studies, this work aims to contribute to the knowledge related to the impacts arising from the construction of the Port of Açu, located in São João da Barra (Brazil). The objective is to identify and quantify the changes occurring in the coastline of the coast that covers the area of indirect influence of the Port, with emphasis on the area of influence of the marine environments. The justification for this work is the increasing interventions that have been made in the study area. The methodology to achieve the results was satellite image analysis, vectorization and the overlap of the coastline to identify alteration, besides calculating the altered area with GIS support. Data of bathymetry of the continental shelf adjacent to the study area were extracted through nautical charts, to perform the wave behavior simulations for the study area for two scenarios: without and with the Porto structures. The results showed that in the southern portion of the project, along the 7.5 km, there was an average progression of the coastline of 14.13 meters between the years of 2010 and 2016, while in the interval of 2003 to 2010 the average of was 33.21 meters. On the other hand, the wave simulations allowed to conclude that they arrive at the coast of the Açu Port with different characteristics when compared to the structures and without the structures, characteristics that remain outside the standard deviation when compared to the behavior of the waves at other points analyzed.