Estabilidad de la línea de costa frente al calentamiento global: análisis de sectores costeros en Tacna y Piura, Perú

Abstract

Geographic information system (GIS) is a powerful tool to analyzing historical shoreline changes from several cartographic sources. The present study analyzed changes along two coastal areas in the department of Piura (Sector Chira river mouth-Colan beach) and the department of Tacna (Sector Boca del Rio, Los Palos beach) in Peru, by using Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS), an extension of ArcGIS. The results show that in Tacna, shoreline tends to the stability or accre- tion in the period 1955-2004 with rates of 0.2 to 1.0 meters/year. Moreover, in Piu- ra, the sector nearest to Chira river mouth shoreline tends to accretion with rates between 1.5 to 1.7 m/year. On the other hand, closest to Colan beach the shoreline trends are erosion with rates between -2 m/year to -4.1 m/year. The different behav- ior of two extreme coastal regions reinforces the local nature of the causes of beach erosion in the country. While El Niño has a very important role in the shoreline stability in the northern Peruvian coastline, the recent tectonic activity may be an important factor to explain the accretion of the coastline in southern Peruvian coast- line.