Abstract
The coastal areas, unique spaces of extraordinary natural wealth, are attractive areas for economic and urban activities. These human interventions may easily interfere with their uniqueness and sensitivity, causing conflicts involving several uses and interests. In Portugal, such problems also occur in a specific zone of the coastal areas – the Maritime Public Domain – which should not be occupied but preserved and kept free for public use. From this point of view, the big issue is the effectiveness of this supposed land protection area concerning sea level rise and wave attacks. Besides, the sea level rise forces the inland movement of this protection zone, which may cause serious conflicts on affected land owners. This manuscript intends to contribute to a more effective management of coastal areas, studying the influence that the re-established of the Maritime Public Domain zone has on their environmental improvement. Restoring the public ownership of the Maritime Public Domain areas would make their management much easier and more efficient, reducing the frequent conflicts between public and private stakeholders. Nowadays, managing these areas is also a complex process because it involves several entities, and has to follow several legal documents and land use planning and management tools. The problems briefly described before led to the design of a methodology to re-establish the public nature of the Maritime Public Domain.
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Notes
Beach Plans are management tools of the shore, and aim to plan the public access, car parking, beach infrastructures, and increase the environmental issues on the shore.
UOPG are particular areas that POOC consider with necessity of more detailed management tools (for example PP or PU) to succeed the POOC aims.
Abbreviations
- DPM:
-
maritime public domain
- DRAOT-C:
-
Regional Directorate of Environment and Planning of Central Portugal
- GIS:
-
geographical information system
- LMPMAVE:
-
maximum equinoctial high sea water level
- PBH:
-
river basin plan
- PEOT:
-
special management plan
- PDM:
-
municipal management plan
- PMOT:
-
local land use management plans
- POA:
-
lagoon management plan
- POAP:
-
protected areas management plan
- POOC:
-
coastal management plan
- PP:
-
detailed plan
- PU:
-
urbanization plan
- UOPG:
-
Operative Unit of Planning and Management
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Acknowledgements
My acknowledgements to the University of Aveiro (Portugal) that afforded their facilities in the research development; to the Regional Directorate of Environment and Planning of Central Portugal that made available the necessary data; and to Prof. Filomena Martins who carried out the supervision of the research.
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Pinho, L. The role of maritime public domain in the Portuguese Coastal management. J Coast Conserv 11, 3–12 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11852-007-0005-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11852-007-0005-4