Part of the northwest coast of Portugal, comprises several areas marked erosion, a fact that has contributed to an increase of the vulnerability of the territory. Understanding the coastal strip an area of interface between the subsystems land-sea, is an area with high mutability, which is in conflict with the current nature of the permanent human presence, so that fragility has its highest expression in the erosion and retreat of the coastline, a phenomenon that has meant the loss of areas of high ecological and economic. This results from several natural factors relating to the rise in the average level of the sea, but also of anthropogenic activities on the territory. The action of man in the coastal areas, does not always obey the principles of environmental and economic sustainability, which is explained by the absence of a clear strategy of spatial planning. Presenting itself as areas of high sensitivity to human action, especially related to urban pressure and the implementation of infrastructure related to tourism and leisure, in addition to being subject to a strong susceptibility to erosion caused by the advancing sea, way of mitigating the risks would be the existence of development plans, which define a non-aggressive development strategy for coastal areas in Portugal.
North Coast of Portugal; erosion risk; human action; territorial planning; occupation of the coast
