Abstract

OLIVEIRA, D. S.; DOMINGUES, M. V. D. R.; ASMUS, M. L.  and  ABDALLAH, P. R.. Port Expansion, Municipal Development and Environmental Changes in Brazil: Challenges for Coastal Management. RGCI [online]. 2013, vol.13, n.1, pp.79-87. ISSN 1646-8872.  https://doi.org/10.5894/rgci356.

Coastal municipalities have a range of land use conflicts on its territory, and the presence of a harbor significantly increases the complexity of such conflicts. To get a better understanding of the challenges involved in coastal management is necessary to take a systemic approach of the evolution of development processes and its consequences for urban structures. Territorial planning and resource management are not easy tasks in coastal municipalities. On one hand there are local pressures related to settlement invasions of environmental protected areas, growing deficit in infrastructure, and unemployment caused by national and global economic instability. On the other hand, there are political and economic pressures from induced by state and federal macro-projects development. The purpose of this article is to understand the relations between port expansion, regional growth and the environmental changes caused by that, highlighting new challenges and opportunities for coastal management. The municipality of Rio Grande (State of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) was taken as a case study for a systemic analysis of this process. The phases of port expansion were identified from data on cargo handling and related with development indicators. Environmental changes were evaluated by looking the urban expansion with GIS methods, comparing the years of 1975 and 2009. Improvements in urban infrastructure were consolidated only in periods in which federal investments were present, characterized as exogenous growth cycles. The observed development process significantly jeopardized coastal environmental like beach ridges and coastal fields. The process analysis highlighted that local stakeholders are not able to truly manage the environmental and social impacts generated by the macro-projects implementation. This fact is intensified by the strong pressure exerted by the private sector (e.g. industry, real estate development), and contribute to constrain a desired good application of policies and management tools. Case study conclusions suggest a needed alternative for the present rapid economic growth with impacts on the population and loss of environmental sustainability. Such alternative can possibly propose a growth pattern supported by technical, legal and policy tools that seeks a balance between economic growth, quality of life and environmental health.

Keywords : Port expansion; coastal management; Rio Grande.

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