COPEDEC Conference on Coastal and Port Engineering in Developing Countries, 4

Abstract

This paper describes the evolution of the Sergipe river mouth since the last century, when the human occupation started in the lowest reach of the estuary with the settling of Aracaju, the new capital of Sergipe state, at the right margin, some 6 Km upstream from the mouth (Figure 1). The developmento of the city towards the mouth, in the early seventies, gave rise to some challenging problems due to the need to make its groth compatible with the migration of the river mouth to SW promoted by natural hydrodynamic forces. For the occupation projects to be implemented, the natural ecosystem was severely impacted with the destruction of an extense mangrove area for land reclamation, initiated in 1997.