The impacts of sea level rise in Santos Harbour (Brazil) for next decades

Santos Harbour is located in the Southern Brazilian coast, in an estuarine area inside Santos Bay, Sao Paulo State. The port nautical areas comprises complex small inland fluvial deltas and a final straight channel to the inlet in Santos Bay. The currents hydrodynamic behavior is forced by tides. The paper presents an assessment of the Brazilian longest set of tidal data, the Santos Dock Company tidal gauge. The resulting tidal level variability (high tide, mean sea level and low tide) of the last seven decades, from 1940 – 2014, four complete lunar declination periods of 18,61 years, shows a consistent increasing trend, similar to those suggested by the IPCC and PIANC. The sea level rise impacts upon port operation evaluated in this paper are the reduction of quays freeboard and the increasing sedimentation in the nautical areas of access channels, turning basins and berths, inducing more maintenance dredging. The sea level rise recommendations, guidelines or requirements issued by different countries and agencies provided examples of approaches used around the world in comparison with the local trends obtained for Santos Harbour.