Recent urbanization and land use/land cover change in Portugal - the influence of coastline and coastal urban centers

Land use and land cover (LULC) maps are able to capture the combined effects of environmental and socioeconomic policies on the territory and therefore are a fundamental indicator for integrated coastal zone management (ICZM). In Portugal, it is generally assumed that coastal areas are heavily artificialized and urbanization rates along the coast are higher than further inland, despite the sharp differences existing between individual regions. The availability of comparable LULC maps enables a quantitative characterization and assessment of changes for these regions over a period of 13-15 years. Using NUTS II of mainland Portugal as spatial reference units and CORINE Land Cover databases as main source data, GIS-based spatial analysis is employed to analyze regional differences in the distribution of artificial surfaces relative to the distance from the coastline and investigate the degrees of urban pressure along coastal areas. Urbanization in the vicinity of regional coastal urban centers is also investigated, and indicators such as average annual change rates and area of specific land use/land cover transfers in the coastal zone are computed. Results quantify the main LULC changes taking place along the coast of mainland Portugal and confirm the following: i) there is correlation between LULC change, distance to coastline, and distance to regional coastal urban centers; ii) this correlation reveals that 'distance' is one of the factors causing physical change in coastal areas; iii) urban pressure in coastal areas displays marked regional differences, being generally higher in the Algarve and Norte regions. This is caused by both historical reasons and limited application of coastal planning practices.