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Providing beach nourishment

by Piotr Matczak, Darryn McEvoy, Ilona Banaszak, Adam Chorynski

[other options]

What:
Beach nourishment refers to the process of mechanically or hydraulically placing sand directly on an eroding shore to restore or form, and subsequently maintain, an adequate protective or desired recreational beach. The addition of sand (not sustenance) on the beach does not constitute nourishment in the true sense. However, this terms has become generally agreed-upon by academia and industry.
Extreme event: Sea surge
Type of option: Technological
Risk management: Risk reduction
Sector: Buildings and construction
Landscape type: Coastal
Location: Denmark; France; Germany; Italy; Spain; The Netherlands; United Kingdom; United States
Why:
Drivers of change: Socio-economic: Mitigation of beach erosion, enhanced demand for recreation, necessity to protect infrastructure located on the shore.



Policy: In Italy beach nourishment was an emergency-type action, counteracting problems identified on the coast without long-term planning or overall strategy. In the Netherlands the disastrous flooding in 1953 led to a change in the policy.
How and who:
Implementation: Implemented in various costal locations. For example in Germany the first fill in the modern times was performed in 1951. Spain and the Netherlands are the biggest beach nourishing countries in Europe.
Institutional context: Different coastal conditions but also different state or regional protection policies might influence the specific objectives of the nourishment project.
Potential barriers: Instability and storms which the lifetime of the nourishment.
Implications for sustainable development:
Implications for sustainable development: Periodic artificial nourishment is widely regarded as an environmentally acceptable method of beach and dune protection and restoration for short-term urgencies (viz. storm-induced
erosion) as well as long-term issues (i.e. structural erosion and relative sea-level rise).
Beach nourishment is usually perceived better than construction of hard structures on the shoreline. Aesthetic values of beach nourishment play a role.
Beach nourishment has typically positive impact on tourism on the coast.
Resources:
Learning
and
knowledge transfer:		 How beach nourishment works:
http://www.dbw.ca.gov/csmw/PDF/HowBeachNourishmentWorks2007.pdf
Beach nourishment - a guide for local officials
http://www.csc.noaa.gov/beachnourishment/
Evaluation: Beach nourishment projects have short lifetimes - on average less than 5 years. The density and grain size of the beach fill makes no difference to the overall stability. Nourished beaches typically erode much faster (approximately 1.5 to 12 times) than natural beaches and nourished beaches do not recover from storms like natural beaches. The main reason of project failure is storms. However, beach nourishment is regarded as the most important method to counteract beach erosion.
Scientific references:
Hanson, J., M. Sato, L. Nazarenko, R. Ruedy, A. Lacis, D. Koch, I. Tegen, T. Hall, D. Shindell, B. Santer, P. Stone, T. Novakov, L. Thomason, R. Wang, Y. Wang, D. Jacob, S. Hollandsworth, L. Bishop, J. Logan, A. Thompson, R. Stolarski, J. Lean, R. Willson, S. Levitus, J. Antonov, N. Rayner, D. Parker, J. Christy (2002). Climate forcings in Goddard Institute for Space Studies SI2000 simulations. Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 107, No. D18: 4347.
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