The landscape compartmentation and its structure and processes characterization is part of the Environmental Diagnosis of Santa Catarina Coast, a project developed by the IBGE Geoscience Administration together with the Coastal Management National Plan, specifically in what concerns to zoning.
The Santa Catarina coast reveals a broad and complex natural diversity along its 531 km of coast, 9,250 km2 of surface and approximately 1,500,000 people among 34 cities.
The coast compartmentation is a result of many levels and stages of multiple synthesis and interdisciplinary formulas based on a methodology founded on the System General Theory and on the division of the landscape as a model established by Bertrand.
The adopted methodology established three taxonomic levels hierarchically organized, where the morphostructure domains create the larger taxon, followed by their geosystems which are divided into geofacies. These constitute the smaller units in which many studies were done both in their structure and dynamic. The morphodynamic evaluation has been carried out based on Tricart's proposition, taking into account the erodibility and the erosive intensity factors. The environments have been classified as stable, intergrades and unstable, and five degrees of vulnerability have been defined.
The main component analysis of the natural system took in consideration the lithologies, the regional structures, all sorts of genetic formations, kind of soil, as well the aspects related to the climate, vegetation and soil use.
The natural frame evaluated under this focus revealed a large diversity. Seven mophostructural domains, 15 geosystems and more than 100 geofacies have been identified, which include potentially rich environments, however, overall vulnerable, as seen in the physical support conditions and the complex relations between their biotic and abiotic components.
The reorganization of the international economy based on the globalization, a model of centralized, selective and intensive development, provoke radical changes in the productive structure with deep influence in the spatial organization and strong pressure over the weak coastal natural systems, with the possibility of losing the potential of this replaceable environment which support a genetic diversity of incommensurable scientific and economic value.
The predatory interventions of the natural resources, although with less intensity than the rest of Brazil, are still present in the Santa Catarina Coast, and getting worse, observing in some cases the risk of becoming irreversible.
The knowledge of the structure and dynamic of the natural frame establish a basic and preliminary stage for the subsequent management and monitoring activities. This, when done efficiently, composes a better foundation for programs dedicated to arrange/rearrange the coastal zone.