Imagery analyses and sediment cores reveal coastal evolution in Cayo Jutías, Northwestern Cuba

Shorelines are being eroded at an accelerated rate in certain sectors of the Cuban Archipelago due to natural and anthropogenic processes. Cayo Jutías, in the northwestern coast of Cuba, has undergone transformation in the last decades including a shoreline retreat of around 10 m y-1 and subsequent flooding of the coastal infrastructure. The causes of this accelerated modification are unclear but two drivers seem to be important: the modification of the natural dynamics because of the construction of a land bridge, and a high exposure to meteorological events. Therefore, we aimed to describe the recent coastal evolution of Cayo Jutías based on the coupling of aerial and satellite imagery and sediment records from cores. We used two aerial photographs and three satellite images derived from Google Earth to verify the changes that have occurred in the study area in the period 1970-2017. Three cores were collected in November 2016 to analyze the sedimentary records of texture and composition. Hurricane and storms are the main natural processes affecting the coastal evolution of shoreline in Cayo Jutías, likely in conjunction with sea level rise. Human intervention, mainly the building of the land bridge, likely exacerbated the shoreline changes. The island behaved as a drift sector, with erosion on the northeast end, sediment transport westwards along shoreline, and accumulation on the southwestern end. Received: 07-01-2021 Accepted: 23-09-2021 First published: 10-01-2022 Editor: Julia Azanza