Beach safety management on the coast of Santa Catarina, Brazil

This paper presents an assessment of beach safety management in the coast of Santa Catarina, southern Brazil, using results of eight years of data collected between 1995 and 2003. Four main factors play a significant role in beach accidents: (1) Landscape defines the use of coastline and the number of beach users; embayed beach are more popular; (2) Rip currents are the main natural hazard for bathers (82% of accidents); (3) The number of people on the beach contributes to beach accidents. As the number of people increases, bathers tend to move to the backshore and surf zone, causing accidents to occur; and (4) Social factors include hazard signal perception and type of beach users. The majority of accidents occur in well-signed places, where red flags on the beach and yellow flags on the lifeguards post are clearly displayed, as well as in low waves and weak rip currents conditions. The most important outcome of this project has been the implementation of a beach safety program for northern coast of Santa Catarina (100 km length), which has led to an 80% reduction in fatal accidents.