CHARACTERIZATION OF THE BALNEÁRIO CAMACHO MARINE COAST (SANTA CATARINA, BRAZIL) AS A SUBSIDY TO MANAGEMENT

Resumo

The lack of planning causes the inadequate occupation of the coast, resulting in relevant landscape changes and in the destruction of ecosystems. The pattern of colonization of the South of Santa Catarina’s territory culminated in human settlements near important and fragile coastal habitats, because these environments enable trade, communication, extraction of natural resources, tourism and leisure. The coastal degradation attracted the attention of the “Ministério Público Federal” (Brazilian Government Agency for Law Enforcement and Prosecution of Crimes), which imposed a local embargo for infrastructural activities in protected areas; this fact motivated this case of study. The study area is the Balneário Camacho (located in the municipality of Jaguaruna, state of Santa Catarina, Brazil), inserted on a sandy barrier, with the identification of the following environments: dune field, deflation plains, lagoons, wetlands and temporary wetlands, shellmound Garopaba do Sul and human settlements. The system of coastal dunes is formed by barchans dunes and barcanoids chains, interspersed by floodplains, where the formation of nebkhas occurs. The coastal classification is a territorial planning methodology that can support political decisions. In this context, the Balneário Camacho landscape was classified as environments and as areas of anthropic conflict; furthermore, the vulnerability of coastal dunes was estimate. Within the limits of the coast area, were found many anthropogenic conflicts: occupations in irregular or risk areas, irregular waste deposits, exotic trees on dunes (for “stabilization”) and uncontrolled access to the beach by vehicles. The results were pooled by multivariate correlation, resulting in an association with areas of different levels of occupation: “not built”, “built” and “partially built”. The characteristics of the physical environment confer greater vulnerability to the dunes, classified in the levels: 2, where there are signs of changes in the system, and 3, where it perceived significant degradation of the dunes. Finally, the coast of the Balneário Camacho was divided into five sectors, categorized into three areas: (i) impacted, (ii) degrading and (iii) preserved, for which management proposals were elaborated. As a conclusion, there is a long way to achieve sustainability in the region; the best alternative, and promising, for development is ecotourism, because of their geographical location and beautiful scenery. Other sustainable uses should be discussed with the community and planned properly.