TLE D U G O E R Tourism Geographies 3(1), 2001, 87–104 · · T a p y u lo r o r & G Fr a nc is 1 2 Recreational development and 3 4 shoreline modi cation along the 5 6 north coast of Yucatán, Mexico 7 8 9 10 11 Klaus J. Meyer-Arendt 12 13 Department of Environmental Studies, University of West Florida, USA 14 15 16 Abstract 17 The north coast of Yucatán has been a destination for domestic tourists for 18 over a century. Since 1945, recreational development has created a 20-km summer- 19 home strip centred upon the port of Progreso. In response to port and harbour 20 improvements and corollary down-drift erosion, second-home owners have 21 armoured the shoreline with groynes and caused a severe physical and aesthetic 22 degradation of the coastal landscape. Since 1990, even the up-drift coast has become armoured and aesthetically degraded. Here, the impetus to modify the 23 shoreline has been in response to poor construction practices and an inability 24 by vacation-home owners to adjust to the natural processes of accretion and 25 erosion that characterize this physical environment. As groyne construction 26 diffuses eastward into pristine beach environments, efforts to expand international 27 tourism may be hindered by environmental degradation caused by shoreline modication. 28 29 30 Keywords: coastal tourism, recreational development, shoreline modication, 31 groynes, Yucatán (Mexico) 32 33 34 Introduction 35 36 The north coast of Yucatán has been a destination for domestic tourists 37 from Mérida, the state capital, for over a century. As a 20-km reach of 38 coast slowly evolved into a conurbation of beachfront summer homes 39 during the 1950s and 1960s, Yucatecan second-home owners faced prob- 40 lems of shoreline erosion, especially west (down-drift) of Progreso, where 41 1142 43 Tourism Geographies ISSN 1461–6688 print/ISSN 1470-1340 online © 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd 44 http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/14616680010008720 88 Meyer-Arendt 111 extensive port and harbour construction had taken place. The response 2 by individual property owners (or lessees) was to construct groynes (shore- 3 normal, rock-and-timber structures built from the beach into the shallow 4 nearshore environment) and these, in turn, accelerated the problem of 5 down-drift erosion and stimulated even more groyne construction. Between 6 the 1960s and late 1980s, the shoreline west of Progreso became very 7 degraded as a result of a combination of severe human-induced erosion 8 and futile efforts by vacation-home owners to retard the erosion. During 9 the 1990s, however, the locus of groyne construction shifted to the east 10 (up-drift) of Progreso, where the shoreline historically had been natural 11 and relatively pristine. Although some of this groyne construction was in 12 response to the passage of Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, especially in the 13 village of Chicxulub Puerto, most is attributed to misguided efforts by 14 second-home owners to stabilize a shoreline that naturally uctuates in 15 position. 16 Second-home domestic tourism is a unique form of tourism that occurs 17 in many coastal reaches of the world in addition to lake and mountain 18 districts (Jaakson 1986). While this form of tourism is characterized by 19 a repeat visitation and leisure-time routine, it is none the less as impor- 20 tant as hotel development in the establishment and growth of resort areas. 21 Since recreation is the overriding purpose of seasonal tourists in Yucatán 22 (and elsewhere), the term ‘recreational development’ is used in reference 23 to growth of a second-home landscape here. The term ‘development’ is 24 used primarily in the sense of ‘spatial reorganization’, rather than in the 25 sense of economic growth, modernization, distributive justice or socio- 26 economic transformation (Pearce 1989). 27 Shoreline change and structural modication have long been research 28 themes of geographers (Johnson 1919; Davis 1956). In the 1980s, Walker 29 (1981, 1984) investigated global impacts of structural modication. A 30 comprehensive volume on articial structures was published in 1988 31 (Walker 1988), which included a short section on Mexico (Gutierrez- 32 Estrada et al. 1988). The specic role of recreation and tourism in leading 33 to shoreline modication was addressed in two edited books in the early 34 1990s (Fabbri 1990; Wong 1993). The impact of articial structures upon 35 adjacent natural beaches has been documented at various venues, including 36 Hawaii (Fletcher et al. 1997). 37 This article is presented as a case study of domestic tourism develop- 38 ment and physical impacts along the north coast of Yucatán. By focusing 39 upon a study area east of Progreso, it will be demonstrated that recre- 40 ational development stimulated by seasonal domestic tourism has become 41 as much of a contributing factor in shoreline modication today as port 42 and harbour development was in the past. There are many other issues 43 related to the growth of tourism in this area that deserve much attention, 1144 e.g. land ownership and illegal land conveyance issues, socio-political 88 Environment: Recreational development, Yucatán 89 1 processes of beachfront development and the internationalization of 2 tourism. The focus here, however, is upon the beaches that attracted 3 domestic tourists and are now in danger of being destroyed by them. 4 5 6 The physical setting 7 8 The north Yucatán coast consists of a beach-ridge plain accreted onto the 9 limestone platform of the Yucatán peninsula where it dips gently north- 10 ward into the Gulf of Mexico (Meyer-Arendt 1993). This beach-ridge 11 ‘barrier’ is separated from the rocky ‘mainland’ by a lagoon/mangrove 12 swamp depression generally referred to as la ciénaga (lagoon/wetlands), 13 but known as the Estero Yucalpetén (estero meaning estuary) in the vicinity 14 of Progreso (Figure 1). The beach-ridge plain varies in width and, in the 15 vicinity of Progreso, it is almost 1 km wide. Active primary dunes are 16 found in unmodied zones of the beachfront and dune heights of up to 17 3 m are common west of Chuburná Puerto. At the beach, depth to lime- 18 stone bedrock averages 3 or 4 m (Sánchez & Vera 1963). The shoreline 19 is generally long and straight, except where interrupted by small Pleistocene 20 limestone outliers, some of which function as natural breakwaters and 21 locally reduce wave energy (Sapper 1945; Edwards 1954). 22 The beach-ridge complex of north Yucatán is thought to have origi- 23 nated in a Holocene sequence of accretion and erosion similar to that 24 of other reaches of the Mexican Gulf Coast (Psuty 1967; Stapor 1971; 25 Tanner & Stapor 1971; Tanner 1975). The multiple-ridge plain reects a 26 regressive phase of sand abundance and accretion, although transgression 27 has prevailed in the historic period. The beach sands contain no quartz 28 sand but high proportions of shell fragments (Isphording 1975), which 29 indicates a nearshore source of the beach material. There is east–west 30 longshore sediment transport, attributed to the longshore currents coming 31 into the Gulf through the Yucatán Channel. Net westward longshore sedi- 32 ment transport rates of 30,000 m3 per year have been estimated for east 33 of Progreso (Sánchez & Vera 1963; SCT 1986). 34 Wave energy is relatively low along the north coast of Yucatán, except 35 during storm events. Because of its north-facing orientation, the north 36 coast is more vulnerable to onslaught by wintertime nortes (northers) than 37 by hurricanes. On average, 20–25 nortes reach Yucatán during the winter 38 season (Vivó 1964; Mosiño & García 1974), the strongest of these causing 39 erosion and lagoonal ooding. In Tabasco, Psuty (1967) noted a pattern 40 of seasonal shoreline change, whereby wider summer beaches give way 41 to narrower, norte-dominated winter beaches. Hurricanes pass over or 42 near the Yucatán peninsula on an east–west track, usually once a year 43 (Wilson 1980), but only rarely are they of the magnitude of Hurricane 1114 Gilbert of 1988 (Meyer-Arendt 1991a,b). Occasionally, a hurricane stalls 89 90 Meyer-Arendt 111 for a prolonged period in the central or northern Gulf of Mexico and 2 initiates a reversal of currents along the north Yucatán coast. This reversal, 3 driven by the rare west wind called chikin-ik by the Maya, may cause 4 erosion along localized reaches that normally lie in sheltered lee locations 5 (Meyer-Arendt 1993). 6 The north coast of Yucatán has been in a transgressive phase for the 7 last century or so, although coastal reaches close to the rock outliers 8 appear to be quite stable. Clifng of dunes is evident in many areas, 9 notably east of Progreso and near Chuburná Puerto, and beachfront 10 coconut palms are periodically uprooted. Shoreline retreat of 200 m 11 over a period of 110 years has been reported (Gutierrez 1983), but 12 this rate appears extraordinarily high and may be based upon inaccurate 13 historical charts. 14 Analysis of aerial photography revealed variability in shoreline changes 15 along the north coast of Yucatán since the 1940s. Overall, shoreline retreat 16 rates were found to be relatively low, especially compared to rates along 17 the northern Gulf of Mexico, but both short-term and geographical vari- 18 ability were apparent. Although the scale of the photography (1:25,000 19 was the best) precluded accurate measurement in areas of little change, 20 high rates of change were measured west of Progreso. Immediately west 21 of Progreso wharf, rates of 0.3 to 0.6 m a-1 were measured for the 1948–78 22 period, and down-drift of the jettied Yucalpetén harbour entrance rates 23 approached 1.0 m a-1 (Meyer-Arendt 1987b).