Uncertain futures in the dynamics of territorial changes: when wetlands meet erosion processes

Erosion has been a distress on anthropogenic activity since antiquity. The changes in spatial properties in coastal changes in wetland systems have had a constantly mutating morphology, often obliging economic activity to readapt itself to the geomorphological conditions. This has had a profound impact on a common territorial identity based on the land use processes of regions prone to geomorphological change. The case of fisheries in the Algarve for instance, where often local catchments would be a support for economic activity in Mediterranean regions, are a vision of economic and historical activity that has changed, not only due to economic transitions, but also due to availability of resources and natural phenomena such as coastal erosion. Wetland and coastal systems are coined with the existence of over 70% of all human activity, all of these intricate relations of environmental and socio-economic change occur at a spatial level and where economic activity is often present. The manifested physical effect on the geophysical and land changes is evident in the occurring consequences on land cover, but also on land use types and anthropogenic exploration of these areas. A deeper understanding of the changes occurring at territorial level simultaneously on the tendencies on coastal erosion, allow monitoring of most adequate actions in fragile regions. This paper proposes an integrated assessment based on spatial analysis and quantitative spatial methodologies as to allow a methodology of analyzing change, and studying the impacts registered in the valuable stretch of the Ria Formosa in Portugal