Analysis of the Spatial Correlation between Port Areas Configuration and Alterations of the Coastal Shoreline: A Multidisciplinary Approach Using Spatiotemporal GIS Indicators

Abstract

Transformations that occur in the coastal territory often have an important link with the construction of port infrastructures, although establishing a direct correlation between causes and effects is rarely straightforward as they are phenomena that emerge over decades. Moreover, this phenomenon is fundamentally observed in developed countries, where we also find the added difficulty that a high number of variables intervene since the coast is usually an environment that is strongly anthropized by human action whilst being an important tourist asset. This study analyzes, from a different perspective than traditional coastal engineering approaches, the existing correlation between the construction of various marinas and coastal infrastructures along the southeast of the Spanish Mediterranean coast. The existing geostatistical correlation between the configuration of port areas and the coastal and socioeconomic impacts that occurred during the decades following the construction of these infrastructures was evaluated using spatiotemporal GIS indicators. The results obtained show that there are different patterns of behavior in the impact generated by port infrastructures depending on the spatial configuration of their boundary conditions, beyond the behavior of sedimentary dynamics usually studied in civil engineering.