Abstract:
This paper illustrates the methodology developed to evaluate
the risk of flooding of a coastal area, as well as the
application of such methodology to Vale do Lobo beach,
situated in the Loulé Municipality, a Portuguese coastal area
under significant touristic pressure. The methodology is
based on four main steps: a) division of the study area into
sub-areas with similar characteristics in terms of coastal
defense; b) determining the probability of exceedance of
pre-set thresholds of flood levels for each study area; c)
establishment of qualitative factors related to the
consequences of exceedance of pre-set thresholds of flood
levels; d) combination of the above steps for expeditious
assessment of flood risks.
The determination of flood levels follows the methodology
presented in [1] and [2], which is based on the transference
of the Faro wave-buoy regime to the study area by using the
SWAN model integrated in a geographic information system
(GIS)
