Técnica para avaliação da vulnerabilidade ambiental de ambientes costeiros utilizando um sistema geográfico de informações

This paper presents a technique to evaluate the environmental vulnerability of a portion the Rio Grande do Sul Coastal Plain, Brazil, by using the Geographical Information System IDRISI 32. After defining environmental vulnerability criteria and factors, IDRISI 32’s decision making routines were applied. The factors were standardized to a common numeric range (0 to 255) and then combined by means of a weighted average (weighted linear combination – WLC) to obtain the relative environmental vulnerability map. This map shows a range of continuous values varying from 0 (low vulnerability) to 255 (high vulnerability). The methodology, as well as the computational analysis tool are very flexible helping to reach a technical consensus or a decision making, which are very important aspects to integrated coastal zone management programs