A Spatial Exploratory Approach for Assessing Impacts of Urban Sprawl and Coastal Erosion: An Investigation of the Atlantic Iberian Coast

Portugal and part of Spain's shorelines lie on the Atlantic Ocean, facing coastal erosion in parallelism with urban encroachment. As a result, there are concerns regarding the endangerment of livelihood and landmass dilemma. Most studies regarding these issues are conducted by the UN or conservation agencies with a specific focus on Southern European coasts on the Mediterranean Sea. To investigate the validity of these concerns and supplement on existing reports, this study conducts a multi-temporal comparative analysis of the four cities (Tavira, Faro, Huelva, and Ayamonte) found on the coasts of Portugal and Spain, by integrating and utilizing open-source satellite imagery (i.e Landsat) and generating a land-use and landcover (LULC) change detection analysis. This is used to assess areas at risk and track significant changes that might be occurring over the last 40 years (1981 to 2021).