1. Journal of Coastal Research SI 56 1311 - 1315 ICS2009 (Proceedings) Portugal ISSN 0749-0258
Evaluation of Sustainability Indicators for the Coastal Zone of Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil
R.D. Souto †, M. Polette‡ and M. Kampel∞
† Escola Nacional de Ciências Estatísticas ‡ Centro de Ciências ‡ Divisão de Sensoriamento Remoto
Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Tecnológicas da Terra e do Mar Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas
Estatística Universidade do Vale do Itajaí Espaciais, São José dos Campos
Rio de Janeiro 88303-202, Brazil 12227-010, Brazil
20231-050, Brazil mpolette@univali.br milton@dsr.inpe.br
raquel.deziderio@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
SOUTO, R.D., POLETTE, M. and KAMPEL, J., 2009. Evaluation of sustainability indicators for the coastal zone of
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Journal of Coastal Research, SI 56 (Proceedings of the 10th International Coastal
Symposium), 1311 – 1315. Lisbon, Portugal, ISSN 0749-0258.
This paper demonstrates the application of sustainability indicators in a case study that evaluates anthropogenic
impacts on the coastal zone of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The analysis considered 41 socio-
environmental thematic indicators at six dimensions of the eco-development: spatial, cultural, economic,
ecological, social and political. The indicators were applied to 34 coastal municipalities of the State of Rio de
Janeiro, classified in regions with a low, middle or high degree of anthropogenic impact. The thematic indicators
were aggregated to obtain sectorial indicators that supported the derivation of dimensional indicators. A final
index, termed the Anthropogenic Impact Index (AII), was calculated as a weighted mean of dimensional indexes.
The percentage of municipalities with impact indexes above the average was 53% in the ecological, economic,
social and political dimensions and 47% in the spatial dimension. Considering the AII, 53% of municipalities
showed indexes above the average, with 39% of municipalities located in Guanabara Bay Littoral, 39% in the
Região dos Lagos Littoral, 17% in the Norte-Fluminense Littoral and 5% in the Southern Littoral. It was
concluded that the application of sustainability indicators, such as proposed in this work, can be used to a
quantitatively characterize socio-environmental parameters of the Brazilian coastal zones and to the effectiveness
of public policy mechanisms along the Brazilian littoral zone, particularly those related to monitoring reports
such as the Environmental Quality Report.
ADITIONAL INDEX WORDS: Coastal management, Sustainable development, Environmental index.
INTRODUCTION approximately 24% of the state’s population and to approximately
o 10% of all migrations into Brazilian states (IBGE, 2000).
The coastal zone of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (21 -
The floating population composed of tourists is substantial,
23oS; 41o-45oW) includes 34 municipalities that are organized into
corresponding to an increase of 773,932 people in 2007, which
four coastal sectors: the Southern Littoral, the Guanabara Bay
was 15.4% of the total number of visitors to Brazil in this year
Littoral, the Região dos Lagos Littoral and the Norte-Fluminense
(EMBRATUR, 2008).
Littoral (FEEMA, 2008) Enclosing an area of approximately 19,000
Environmental policymaking is a difficult effort.
km2, this coastal zone extends by more than 850 km of littoral
Decisionmakers must address a wide range of natural resource
with a maritime zone of 12 nautical miles. This region is home to
management and pollution control issues in the face of causal
80% of Rio de Janeiro’s population, approximately 10.5 million
complexity, incomplete or conflicting data, and many other
people, and has a demographic density of 585 inhabitants/km2
uncertainties. Without careful analysis based on solid factual
(FEEMA, 2008).
foundations, bad choices are made, investments in environmental
Coastal areas of the State of Rio de Janeiro present a wealth of
protection under-perform, and political divisions widen (ESTY et
natural resources and are rich with diverse species, habitat types,
al., 2008). Therefore, shifting environmental policymaking onto
and nutrients. These areas also support diverse economic
firmer analytic foundations, based on carefully constructed data
activities. In 2005, Rio de Janeiro State was responsible for 84%
and indicators, emerges as a matter of considerable urgency.
and 45% of the Brazilian oil and gas production, respectively
Identifying an appropriate set of metrics is equally important.
(ANP, 2005 apud FCIDE, 2006). Extractive and transformation
Some indicator initiatives have been too broad to be of great value
industries are important to the economy, contributing 35% of the
(ESTY et al., 2005). The aim of this work was to formulate and
state’s Gross Domestic Product (FCIDE, 2006). Business and
evaluate indicators for the coastal cities of Rio de Janeiro covering
service companies represent 49% and 37% of the total number of
sustainable development in a “six dimensional bottom line”
commercial establishments, respectively (FCIDE, 2006).
considering spatial, cultural, economic, ecological, social and
Employment, recreation and tourism, commerce, and energy
political factors, as proposed by SACHS (2002).
production are factors causing migration into these areas. In 2000,
2,476,072 people entered Rio de Janeiro, which corresponds to
Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue 56, 2009
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2. Evaluation of Sustainability Indicators for the Coastal Zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
METHODS A website was also built to disseminate the methodology and the
Based on regional characteristics, a list of 41 thematic results more widely on the internet (SOUTO, 2008).
indicators was created. These indicators were hierarchically
ranked within 15 sectors and 6 dimensions. An index of RESULTS
sustainability was calculated for each dimension from which an Table 1 shows the highest and lower arithmetic means among
integrated index, called the Anthropogenic Impact Index (AII), component indexes of each dimension, except the cultural
was ultimately composed. The municipalities were identified by dimension, which has a unique component indicator. The highest
numeric codes (1-34) as well as the parameters (1-51). Table 3 and lower arithmetic means for the sectors of the economic and
shows the thematic indicators codified by alphanumeric social dimensions are shown in Table 2.
combinations (Ax-Fx) according to the six dimensions (A-F).
Each indicator was associated with its DPSIR – Deriving forces, Table 1: Highest and lower arithmetic means, with standard
Pressures, State, Impacts or Response type (EUROSTAT, 1999). deviations indicated in brackets, among component indexes of
Datasets of 51 parameters used to build the thematic indicators each dimension, except the cultural dimension.
were obtained from different sources: six governmental – IBGE
(2000), IPEA (2000), FCIDE (1994, 2001), INPE (2003), INEPAC Dimension Highest mean Lower mean
(2005), MS (2003) and one non-governmental – SOSMA (2000).
The datasets were obtained from recognized institutions providing A2a - Atlantic forest A3a - Permanent farming
Spatial
official data in Brazil. These institutions had previously validated A
coverage coverage
the datasets. In each series of data, the missing data were 0.2550 (0.2829) 0.0726 (0.1784)
estimated by linear regression. The coefficients used to compose
the thematic indicators were normalized between 0 and 1 and Economic
C1b - Participation of C2b - Industry participation in
those indexes were calculated according to the following equation population in the EAP the municipality’s economy
C
(IISD, 2008): 0.8234 (0.1562) 0.0588 (0.1718)
Ecological D1d - Water bodies area D1c - Degraded areas
D 0.6470 (0.4850) 0.0911 (0.2482)
Ind x = [( Coef x  Coef min ) / ( Coef max  Coef min )] (1)
E2c - Domestic garbage E2d - Water treatment plants
where Indx is the index for each municipality; Coefx is the Social
collection efficiency coverage
coefficient estimated for a specific municipality; Coefmin is the E
0.7997 (0.2306) 0.0477 (0.1759)
lower coefficient of the series; and Coefmax is the maximum
coefficient of the series. F1e - Municipal expenses
F1b - Total municipal
The indexes of the 15 sectors and 6 dimensions were Political
current expenditures
directed to national security
arithmetically averaged from the component indexes. The AII was F and public defence
0.5776 (0.1437)
calculated using a weighted arithmetic average of the dimensional 0.0874 (0.2278)
indexes, as described in equation (2):
AII = I A 0.15 + I B 0.1 + IC 0.2 + I D 0.2 + I E 0.2 + I F 0.15 (2) Comparatively, the highest mean (0.7925) was obtained for the
cultural dimension, B, followed by the political dimension, F
where IA is the index of the spatial dimension; IB is the index of (0.6214), the ecological dimension, D (0.3618), the social
the cultural dimension; IC is the index of the economic dimension; dimension, E (0.3439), the spatial dimension, A (0.3398), and the
ID is the index of the ecological dimension; IE is the index of the economic dimension, C (0.3014), respectively. For the AII index,
social dimension; and IF is the index of the political dimension. the mean was 0.4290, with L1 and L2 limits of 0.3742 and 0.4756,
An exploratory analysis of the indexes was conducted to respectively.
identify three thematic classes: high, middle or low anthropogenic The ecological, economic, social and political dimensions
impact. Basic statistical moments were calculated for the indexes, showed that 53% of municipalities had indexes above the mean.
and the upper and lower limits of the classes intervals were The spatial and cultural dimensions showed that 47% and 71%,
defined according to equations (3) and (4): respectively, of the municipalities had indexes above the mean.
Regarding the AII, 53% of municipalities had indexes above
L1 = μ  σ (3) the mean, with 39% belonging to the Guanabara Bay Littoral,
39% to the Região dos Lagos Littoral, 17% to the Norte-
L2 = μ + σ (4) fluminense Littoral, and 5% to the Southern Littoral.
where is the arithmetic mean and  is the standard deviation. In
cases where the L1 or L2 limits were out of the interval from the
minimum index to the maximum index, the variance, rather than
standard deviation, was used. The classes’ intervals were defined
as follows: low impact – interval from the minimum index to L1;
middle impact – interval from (L1 + 0.0001) to (L2 + 0.0001); and
high impact – interval from L2 to the maximum index. This
classification scheme was used to produce the thematic maps.
A relational database was implemented in MySQL Server v.4.1
and PHP 5 programming was used to implement the formulas to
calculate the indexes and to generate the thematic maps (Figure 1).
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3. Souto et al.
Table 2: Highest and lower arithmetic means, with standard important as the numbers of schools. If this last measure is
deviations indicated in brackets, among indexes of sectors of the included in the HDI-Education computation, the ranking of
economic and social dimensions. education quality of the state municipalities would be different
from the list published by the government. In the habitation sector,
Sector Highest mean Lower mean the higher impact is associated with a subnormal agglomeration.
C1a - Human Especially in the metropolitan region, the Guanabara Bay Littoral,
Employing C1b - Participation of people and more recently in the Região dos Lagos Littoral, the subnormal
Development Index –
and Income in the EAP agglomeration process is being intensified. The high degree of
Income
C1 0.8234 (0.1562)
0.3223 (0.2088) concentration in the economic activity and the relatively good
infrastructure available in those areas attracts less privileged
C2b – Industrial
GDP C2a - GDP per capita participation in the
people from other areas. The fast population increase is not
C2 0.1535 (0.2528) municipal economy accompanied by sufficient increase in services, and consequently
0.0588 (0.1718) there is insufficient support from government and private
investments. In the security sector, the homicide indicator should
C3a - Aquaculture not be interpreted as an indicator of satisfactory safety but as a
Fishing C3b - Fishermen
workers
C3 0.1077 (0.2414) very poor register of the occurrence of homicide. Most of the
0.1503 (0.2195)
deaths in high subnormal agglomeration locals do not enter into
C4a - Enterprise
C4b - Hotel the official statistics. Moreover, occurrences of less serious
Enterprises participation in the crimes, such as robberies and assaults are more frequent and are
establishments
C4 municipal economy not registered, causing this indicator to provide an inadequate
0.0951 (0.2070)
0.1255 (0.1642)
picture of the safety level in the cities.
E1c - Deaths by In the political dimension, the application of municipal
Health E1a - HDI-Longevity resources does not sufficiently support the population
transmissible illnesses
E1 0.3342 (0.2290) requirements, and the average amount of received resources was
0.1280 (0.2166)
lowest for education (0.5654), followed by health and sanitation
E2c - Domestic garbage E2d - Water treatment (0.4447) and security (0.0874).
Sanitation
collection efficiency plants coverage The highest rate of impact indexes above the mean (71%) was
E2
0.7997 (0.2306) 0.0477 (0.1759)
estimated for the cultural dimension and indicates that the effort to
Education E3a - HDI - Education E3d - Illiteracy protect historical and cultural goods is still incipient in the state.
E3 0.6321 (0.1684) 0.3059 (0.1895) Due to globalization processes and economic pressures, the
Brazilian society is losing part of its cultural memory and
E4b - Population in E4a - Demographic consequently its own identity. According to SANTOS (2000), the
Housing concept of culture is directly linked with authentic expression,
subnormal agglomerations density
E4
0.2785 (0.2215) 0.1092 (0.2148) integrity and freedom of the people. Distortions constitute a way
of creating new requirements, necessities and habits, resulting in a
resignation of its proper authenticity.
The similarity in the percentage of cities with impact values
DISCUSSION above the average of the other 5 dimensions demonstrates that the
The results obtained for the spatial dimension the shift from a effect of human occupation on these cities is inter-dependent or
rural model to a more developed one in the State of Rio de systemic and has reciprocal consequences.
Janeiro. There was a significant increase in the urban population The results of the percentage of cities, classified by coastal
around the metropolitan region. According to other results sectors, with above average Anthropogenic Impact Indexes
obtained by SOSMA and INPE, it is estimated that only 7.26% of confirm the impact of the urbanization in the Guanabara Bay
the original Atlantic Rain Forest is presently preserved in Brazil, Littoral and of the oil & gas production in the Região dos Lagos
with significant deforestation occurring in the State of Rio de Littoral, mainly in the Campos Basin region. The Southern
Janeiro between 2005 and 2007 (SOSMA, 2006). Littoral has a somewhat better situation but has a risk of change in
The results obtained for the ecological dimension confirm the the near future due to developments in the transformation
achievements reported by OLIVEIRA et al. (2007) that one of the industrial park that was recently installed in this area.
most critical environmental impacts in the cities of the middle-
south regions of Brazil is the sedimentation of water bodies. CONCLUSIONS
In the social dimension, results showed that population health is Sustainability indicators were formulated and applied to
more affected by infantile mortality than by transmissible evaluate the coastal municipalities of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and
illnesses. Still, both of these factors contribute to a shortened were addressed in six dimensions of eco-development. More than
longevity. Children younger than 1 year old are more vulnerable half (53%) of the 34 municipalities had an above average
to illness in general due to their fragile and incompletely Anthropogenic Impact Index, and the cultural and spatial
developed immunity system. Regarding sanitation, we strongly dimensions were the most and the least impacted, respectively.
criticize the extensive use of sanitation landfills and the lack of Considering the coastal sectors, the Guanabara Bay Littoral and
recycling programs. Considering education, the calculated indexes the Região dos Lagos Littoral were more affected than the others
confirm the dependency between the HDI-Education, the level of regions, and the Southern Littoral had a slightly better condition.
literacy, and school inclusion. Another indicator used in this work, These preliminary results indicate that processes of urbanization
docent sufficiency, presented a lower value (0.3471) compared to and industrialization in the metropolitan area and surrounding
school inclusion (0.4326). We conclude that HDI-Education itself cities offer a heavy risk to the well-being of the coastal
cannot fully represent the educational conditions of the state, since population.
the number of teachers available to take care of students is as
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4. Evaluation of Sustainability Indicators for the Coastal Zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
This work represents the result of extensive consultations with a The initiatives related to the coastal management of Rio de
wide range of institutions and data providers. Any attempt to Janeiro are fundamental, considering its relevance in the Brazilian
measure environmental performance requires both an in-depth economic context, the great diversity of natural resources and the
knowledge of each dimension and the relationships between importance of its biodiversity. The methodology applied here are
dimensions and the application of sophisticated statistical satisfactory for the analysis of socio-economic characteristics in
techniques. Thus, this evaluation is a valid starting point for the study area and contribute to a better understanding of the
developing other approaches to understand the coast of Rio de social and economic distortions that still exist in the coastal zone
Janeiro. of Rio de Janeiro as well as to the formulation of more efficient
The use of free software on the evaluation proceedings public policies at local, state and federal level.
represents an evolution in data processing in Brazil suggests it is
possible and advantageous to assimilate this software into the
government’s coastal monitoring activities.
Table 3. Hierarchy of indicators and DPSIR types (DF – Driving forces, P – Pressure, S – State, I – Impact, and R – Response)
Dimension Sectorial indicators and components thematic indicators with DPSIR types()
A - Space A1 – Urbanization: A1a – Urbanization (P); A2 – Preserved Areas: A2a -Covering by Atlantic Forest (S); A3 –
Land Use: A3a – Covering by Permanent Farming (P).
B - Cultural B1 – Protection of Historical-Cultural Goods: B1a - Protection of Historical-Cultural Goods (R).
C - Economic C1 – Employing and income: C1a – Human Development Index – Income (S), C1b – Participation of people in the
EAP (S), C1c – Poverty intensity coefficient – R$ 37.75 line (S), C1d – Poverty intensity coefficient – R$ 75.50 line
(S); C2 – GDP: C2a – GDP per capita (S), C2b – Industrial participation in the municipal economy (P); C3 –
Fishing: C3a – Aquaculture workers (P), C3b – Fishermen (P); C4 – Enterprises: C4a – Enterprise participation in
the municipal economy (DF/R), C4b – Hotel establishments (P).
D - Ecological D1 – Landscape modification: D1a – Covering by secondary vegetation (S), D1b – Coverage by field-pasture (S),
D1c – Degraded areas (S), D1d – Water body area (S).
E - Social E1 – Health: E1a – Human Development Index – Longevity (S), E1b – Life Expectancy at birth (I), E1c – Deaths by
transmissible illnesses (I), E1d – Infantile mortality (I); E2 – Sanitation: E2a – Sanitation efficiency (R), E2b –
Water supply coverage (R), E2c – Efficiency of home garbage collection (R), E2d – Water treatment stations
coverage (R), E2e – Drain treatment coverage (R), E2f - Urban drainage net covering (R). E3 – Education: E3a –
Human development index – Education (S), E3b – School insertion (S), E3c – Sufficiency of teachers (R), E3d –
Illiteracy (S); E4 – Housing: E4a – Demographic density (DF/P), E4b – Population in subnormal agglomerations
(I/P), E4c – Subnormal agglomerations (I/P); E5 – Security: E5a – Homicides (I).
F - Politics F1 – Public Administration: F1a – Total municipal capital expenditures (R), F1b – Total municipal current
expenditures (R), F1c – Municipal expenses directed to education and culture (R), F1d - Municipal expenses
directed to health and sanitation (R), F1e - Municipal expenses directed to national security and public defense (R).
Figure 1. Thematic map of the Anthropogenic Impact Index (AII) for coastal municipalities of the State of Rio de Janeiro (adapted
from http://www.ivides.org/atlas_en/ind_mapa.php?cod=I ).
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5. Souto et al.
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