Nowadays, it is denoted that tourism in protected areas has been intensified in an unbalanced way, putting the values that it contain at risk. Hiking has been revealed as one of the main modalities responsible for this unbalance by the fact that it is considered a modality for everyone. We denote that the pedestrian paths as being the primary target of this modality, started to reveal some degradation over the years, exposing its weaknesses. Given the issues mentioned, it becomes necessary to take further action to take control of this situation and to raise awareness among the hikers to the problems that comes from this uncontrolled influx. In this sense signaling in the pedestrian paths is so crucial because that is signs are the first contact that visitors encounter with the natural park and in that way improve communication and handover any type of information. In light of the aforementioned, taking these concerns into consideration rises the mains goal of this dissertation to deepen and create a proposal of signaling for pedestrians paths in Arrabida Natural Park.

Mestrado em Arquitectura Paisagista - Instituto Superior de Agronomia