Itapoã's neighborhood is best known for its natural resources and enormous cultural value. It represents the city symbol, its unique features differentiates it from others neighborhoods. Due to its diverse attractions, in the past century, Itapoã was the most popular summer resort. But in the past decades, due to accelerated urbanization process, it became a place with overcrowded beach, high levels of pollution and destruction of native vegetation. In this context, this article intends to analyze the capacity of support and accommodation of regular attendants of Itapoã's beach, giving subsidizes to its environmental and social management. Itapoã's beach was divided in 55 equal units of 30 meters length. The numbers of person occupying each area was used to calculate the area at disposition for each user. The major parts of this neighborhood area showed an intense density, living 4 to 10 meters square per user. This area per person represents the minimum area tolerated by the users. During the interviews, the dirt and lack of structures from the beach establishments were the worst problems pointed out, while the easy access and peace were the most attractive.
Capacity of support; Environmental and social management; Urbanization process
