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Paper short abstract:

Between 1882 and 1902, the coastline of Veracruz and especially the nearby dunes were deeply modified during the modernization of the port. I will use engineers' reports, which include the cubic meters of sand extracted during the said works, to reflect on the environmental impact on these dunes.

Paper long abstract:

The modernization of the port of Veracruz (Mexico), carried out between 1882 and 1902, implied an intense modification of the coastline and, in particular, of the dunes surrounding the city. The reports of these works mention the extraction of thousands of cubic meters of sand from these coastal dunes for diverse purposes. Although the mining and extraction of sand in Veracruz dates back to the colonial period, for the aforementioned dates we have various sources, such as reports of engineers with detailed quantities and uses of this sand, which help us to get a more accurate idea of the magnitude of this process during the said works. In this paper, I will use these data to reflect on the environmental impact of this modernization project on this particular coastal ecosystem. The expansion of the Port of Veracruz, which included the construction of new structures and the reclamation of approximately 100 hectares of land, has been studied from an economic, political, and social historical perspective, and more recently its impact on coral reefs has been evaluated. Nevertheless, a study from the environmental history vision about the coastal dunes in this case does not exist, which will be the contribution of this paper. Today, the coastal dunes have almost disappeared in the city of Veracruz, their destruction continues in the southern and northern territories along the same littoral, and the sand as an endless resource is still the underlying idea in this process.