Description of Cabanas Island/Cacela Peninsula

Cabanas Island has been elongating towards the East since the 1960s. The growth of the island was closely related to the eastwards migration and narrowing of the Lacém Inlet. Cabanas Island has developed initially by the incorporation of intertidal sand banks and deltas associated to the inlet. Progressively, dunes developed over the low-lying barrier, enhanced by dune building grasses.

From the 1950s to 1996, about 77% of the dune area of the Cacela Peninsula has been eroded. In 1996, Cacela Peninsula was an extremely vulnerable system, densely breached, with a very low, poorly vegetated, single crested dune field. As a consequence of the nourishment operation, during the 1996/97 winter, the dune ridge top was raised by placement of about 325,000 m³ of dredged sediments.

The Cabanas/Cacela barrier sub-system is one of EVREST project study sites because it allows a quantification of time frames of barrier development, from intertidal features to vegetated dunes.

Suggested readings:

Andrade, C. (1990). O ambiente de barreira da Ria Formosa, Algarve-Portugal. PhD thesis. Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal (in Portuguese).

Dias, J.A., Ferreira, Ó., Matias, A., Vila-Concejo, A., Sá-Pires, C. (2003). Evaluation of soft protection techniques in barrier islands by monitoring programs: case studies from Ria Formosa (Algarve-Portugal). Journal of Coastal Research (SI) 35, 117-131.

Matias, A., Ferreira, Ó., Mendes, I., Dias, J.A., Vila-Concejo, A. (2005). Artificial construction of dunes in the South of Portugal. Journal of Coastal Research, 21 (3): 472-481.

Pilkey, O., Neal, W. J., Monteiro, J. H. Dias, J. A. (1989). Algarve barrier islands: a noncoastal-plain system in Portugal. Journal of Coastal Research, 5 (2): 239-261.