Abstract
The coastal landscape of the south of the Baja California peninsula provides significant socio-economic benefits based on tourism. An analysis of coastal vulnerability was conducted for Cabo San Lucas, considering wave climate conditions, sediment characterization, beach profiles, and the historical occurrence of coastline changes, hurricanes, and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. The coastal scenery was also classified considering the landscape value of the environment from a touristic point of view, based on human and natural interactions on the landscape. Results show that the vulnerability increases close to the submarine sand falls, near intense urbanization, in resort areas, and at locations with narrow beach and dune widths. The degree of vulnerability along the coast alters abruptly, as urban and recreational sites alternate with natural sites. This coastline has seen exponential development since the 1980s, resulting in highly vulnerable areas with a low, and decreasing, touristic value, as the landscape has been changed into an urban settlement with limited natural attractions. Urban and recreational settlements threaten to cover dunes and reservoirs of natural sediments, increasingly affecting vulnerability in the area as well as the landscape values of many parts of the coast, including the submarine sand falls.
Highlights
Coastal systems are transitional regions which require holistic approaches to analyze disturbances related to impacts from coastal erosion, landscape threats, urbanization, sea level rise, and the introduction of exotic species [1,2,3,4]
This study aims to examine the vulnerability of Cabo San Lucas and possible implications for the submarine sand falls by: (i) appraisal of the wave climate (1979–2018), (ii) analysis of sediment characterization and beach profiles
The coastal scenery classification and the coastal vulnerability were examined for Cabo San Lucas, where tourism development and the submarine sand falls rely on the ecological, physical, and coastal processes taking place in the area
Summary
Coastal systems are transitional regions which require holistic approaches to analyze disturbances related to impacts from coastal erosion, landscape threats, urbanization, sea level rise, and the introduction of exotic species [1,2,3,4]. Vulnerability Index (CVI) was focused on the effects of sea level rise, floods, and erosion processes [2,3,10]. The introduction of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) at local, regional, and national levels has assisted the development of CVIs related to natural hazards [12], flood risk analysis from extreme storm surges [13], the vulnerability of urban coastal sectors [14], regional coastal erosion [15], and sea level rise [16,17,18]. Recent CVIs have been devised to analyze vulnerability on a wide variety of coastal systems [6,19,20,21,22]
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