Analysis of the environmental licensing procedure for coastal environments in Colombia : a geomorphological perspective from the concept of susceptibility to the effect of human interventions

Abstract

Important flaws in the environmental licensing procedures in Colombia are directly related to the generalized degradation of its coastal fringes and littoral zones. These areas are severely affected by human interventions that interfere with natural processes and severely modify their sedimentary balances, geomorphological contexts, and physical-biotic conditions. Among many other examples, the following stand out: a) the widespread erosion and destruction of beaches and dunes in the Magdalena River delta, associated with the construction of the Bocas de Ceniza jetties; b) the drastic modification of the hydrodynamics of the littorals at the Atlantic and Magdalena departments due to linear infrastructure projects; c) the hyper-salinization and loss of more than 30,000 hectares of mangrove in the lagoon complex of the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta (CGSM) due to the expansion of the agricultural frontier and linear infrastructure projects; d) the accelerated retreat of beaches and cliffs in the southern Caribbean, due to activities such as deforestation, beach material extraction, and disordered and chaotic construction of nearly 500 rigid shore protection works; and e) the salinization of more than 10,000 hectares of freshwater marshes in the Bay of Cispatá as a consequence of the induced formation of the new delta of Tinajones. In this sense, the location of infrastructure in geological and geomorphologically unstable lands, affected by phenomena such as coastal subsidence and mud diapirism, poses first order natural threats and risks. This is a palpable panorama in the present and future of urban and rural areas of cities such as Barranquilla, Cartagena, Arboletes and Necoclí, all of them with future developments (industry, ports, urban development) of the greatest importance. The environmental costs associated with such interventions are incalculable, not counting the existence of numerous other examples, which demonstrate among other factors an insufficient acknowledgment to geomorphology in the evaluation, monitoring, and control of human interventions in the marine-coastal environment. These environmental management functions in Colombia are provided through the environmental licensing procedure, which rests upon national and regional authorities according to Law 99 of 1993. In the above context, the following research questions arise:  What elements of the environmental licensing of interventions in coastal environments can be improved, giving priority to the particular geomorphological contexts of the intervention zones?  How has the regulatory system evolved in Colombia with respect to human interventions on coastal environments?  What technical improvements can be made to the Colombian regulatory framework to guide the evaluation, monitoring, and control of human interventions from the geomorphological approach of susceptibility? This research work examines the environmental regulatory framework that currently governs Colombian coastal zones, through two geographic levels. At the first macro level, human interventions 16 are characterized and analyzed on the continental Caribbean coast, a region that represents a significant sample of the Colombian context due to its higher levels of human occupation and consequent anthropogenic disturbances. At a second level, in greater detail, the conceptual and methodological approach resulting from this research is defined and illustrated, with the demonstration in one of the coastal environmental units defined by decree 1120 of 2013 for integrated coastal management. To answer the questions raised, Chapter I briefly introduces the historical geomorphological evolution of the Colombian coastlines since the end of the XVIII century. The complex geology and geomorphology of the Caribbean and Pacific coasts of Colombia are evident in this "appetizer", in which low-relief deltaic islands and mangroves contrast with steep rocky reliefs, cliffs and wide emerged and submerged coastal platforms. The historical evolution of the Colombian littorals involves changes in the coastline estimated in hundreds of meters, at maximum rates of 40 meters a year (Punta Rey, Arboletes, Tumaco Bay), and land losses and gains of the order of tens of square kilometers (Ciénaga de Mallorquín, Isla Cascajo, Tinajorenas Delta - Cispatá, Bay, Urabá Gulf, San Juan and Patía river deltas). These cases reflect drastic variations in the sediment balances of the coast, many of them caused or heavily influenced by human actions, such as navigation infrastructure, modification of river courses and coastal protection works. Chapter II identifies the geomorphological perspective in the environmental licensing of coastal interventions in Colombia, based on its comparison with the regulatory frameworks of Italy, Spain, and Cuba. The interviews and documentary reviews highlighted 59 interventions associated with human uses and activities in the coastal zones, whose compulsory nature for the licensing varies among countries. The natural geomorphological processes were also analyzed within the technical criteria included in the official guidelines for environmental studies. It is concluded that, despite the worldwide acceptance of environmental impact assessments through a licensing procedure, their application in coastal environments is still very diverse and limited in terms of the pertinence of the geomorphological processes that configures the coast. Therefore, seven good practices for the evaluation and control of anthropogenic impacts in the coastal zone are underlined, and a new process-oriented approach is introduced for environmental licensing procedures. In Chapter III, an inventory and characterization of human interventions on the continental coast of the Colombian Caribbean are documented, to establish a regional baseline. Based on images from Google Earth, a total of 2,742 works and activities were located, representing 29 different types of human interventions. This inventory was complemented with an evaluation of the general impact of each intervention, based on four attributes of its geomorphological effects, namely, extension, intensity, reversibility, and persistence. The three most common types of human interventions (low-density settlements, groins and luxury settlements with dock) were also the ones with the higher environmental impact. However, some interventions (e.g., high-density settlements or road infrastructure) had higher environmental impact values than more frequent ones. 17 Based on this exhaustive analysis of the Colombian Caribbean, Chapter IV evaluates the national environmental regulatory framework applicable to coastal areas. It evidences that the licensing procedure in Colombia currently regulates only four of the ten types of interventions with greater effect in the Colombian coastal zones. Also, the number of works and activities covered in each new legislative reform consistently decreased over time. In addition, three policy implications were extracted for coastal and ocean planning, related to a) the geographic diversity of tropical coastal zones; b) the need for territorial carrying capacity instruments and; c) the lack of articulation of territorial planning instruments. The conclusions identify an important gap between technical and political decision making in the environmental regulatory framework of Colombia, which stresses the need for the design of novel methods to assess the breadth and length of geomorphological dynamics in an environmental management context. Therefore, the previous chapters highlight three important deficiencies in Colombia, with respect to the environmental management of human interventions in coastal areas: 1) the absence of a strategy to determine interventions that require an environmental licensing procedure (screening); 2) a poor definition of the scope of environmental studies through relevant information requirements (scoping) and; 3) the disarticulation of environmental management instruments, such as territorial planning and environmental licenses. All these elements ratify that the environmental regulatory framework in Colombia has been insufficient to date to manage the anthropogenic impact in coastal environments due to the unawareness of the natural susceptibility to the effect of human interventions. In this work, the susceptibility is defined as the predisposition of an environmental unit (socio-natural system) to experience changes or affectation due to the introduction of human interventions. In order to propose improvements to the Colombian environmental system, Chapter V establishes a new conceptual and methodological approach to guide the evaluation, monitoring, and control of human impacts from a geomorphological perspective. This novel product has been called Susceptibility to Human Interventions for Environmental Licensing Purposes (SHIELP). The architecture of this model has three components, which are particular to a kind of environment, namely, geomorphological processes, geomorphological configurations and potentially impacting human interventions. Each of these components is translated into a variable by means of expert qualifications along with a fuzzy logic computation strategy. Therefore, the expert-diffuse system SHIELP qualifies the susceptibility of a distinctive landform to the effects of a characteristic type of human intervention, through the estimated perturbation in each geomorphological process that configures the kind of environment under study. As a demonstration, this chapter also documents the design of the expert-diffuse system for coastal environments, drafted from research workshops with members of the marine and coastal research institute INVEMAR (In Spanish: Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras “José Benito Vives de Andréis”). The role of this institute as an official adviser to the environmental authorities in matters of impact assessment demonstrates its relevance to support the expert-knowledge base of the model. 18 As a consequence, the SHIELP model was applied with the parameters established for coastal environments, resulting in a database of susceptibility values for 4,524 interactions (littoral configuration vs intervention). The real applicability of this exercise corresponds to the translation of this database into a technical criterion to improve the Colombian regulatory framework. On the one hand, five susceptibility ranges were linked to five differentiated instruments, two of which articulate environmental licensing with territorial plans, while the others differentiate the pertinent degree of licensing for human interventions according to location properties (screening). On the other hand, the differentiated instruments were also combined with four degrees of information requirements for the definition of the scope in the respective environmental studies (scoping). In this way, the susceptibility value of a given intervention in a given configuration (interaction) would fit a percentile range that places its environmental control in a territorial competence (regional or national), and through a specific licensing instrument, with differentiated information requirements for the baseline definition. Finally, the operation of the SHIELP model was also demonstrated with a case study: the environmental coastal unit Magdalena River - Canal del Dique complex - Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta lagoon system. The geographic information of this regional coastal unit was interpreted according to the parameters defined in the SHIELP model for coastal environments. 154 polygons were delimited in the study area, according to the 40 coastal configurations identified. As a result, 13 cartographic maps represent this area, with the levels of susceptibility attributed to each configuration for the 52 potentially impacting interventions. In order to illustrate the applicability of the model, four scenarios are presented to discriminate interventions by environmental management instrument (screening) and to define information requirements on geomorphological processes (scoping). In this way, the SHIELP model specifies the environmental licensing instrument for human interventions and the corresponding scope of the technical study, given the characteristics of its interaction with the geomorphological configuration. The Overall Conclusions document reflections and recommendations to the Colombian national environmental system – SINA (in Spanish: Sistema Nacional Ambiental) to implement the results of this research. In addition, this work opens a broad perspective for future research in the approach of susceptibility to the effect of human interventions. The SHIELP model for coastal environments can be replicated in different geographies to progressively articulate a national database of coastal susceptibility. Also, the presented methodological scheme can be applied in different kinds of environments, other than the coastal zone. The extension of this approach of geomorphological susceptibility to the variety of tropical ecosystems would set the path for a successful transition from the current anthropocentric and fragmentation-oriented conception towards an ecosystem-based management approach.