Coastal erosion and village relocation: a Colombian case study

Because of its tectonic setting, the Pacific coast of Colombia is subject to a variety of geological hazards, including earthquakes, tsunamis and associated phenomena such as regional and local coastal subsidence, flooding and soil liquefaction. Erosional trends are prevalent along much of the 700 km long, low barrier island's shorelines of the Pacific littoral and land losses are enhanced by factors such as 30 cm regional sea level rises associated to the occurrence of El Niño. Marine erosion is threatening more seashore littoral villages and worsening the already difficult socioeconomic conditions of most part of the inhabitants. Because of diverse and strong motivations to stay near the sea, the responses of barriers island's inhabitants to marine erosion has consisted in most cases of repetitive in-shore and along-shore directed relocations of villages, rather than definitive abandonment of the islands. In the long run, this procedure only has postponed the problem and led to repetitive relocations and economical losses. The recent inland relocation of El Choncho village, on the San Juan River delta, illustrates a different response to marine erosion. Although a new along-shore relocation was physically possible, inhabitants decided to abandon the barrier island and migrate to an interior, ancient beach ridge complex, applying a prudent solution which will be the most appropriate for other threatened villages of the Pacific littoral. A detailed geomorphologic mapping program must be conducted in order to identify appropriate sites for inland relocation of existing villages on the barriers islands of the Colombian Pacific coast.