Image courtesy: Research Gate

Beach Nourishment, a Soft Armor!

There are any number of technologies that evolved and applied as the anti-sea erosion methods, both hard-armoring such as seawalls, groins, etc. and soft-armoring such as mangrove-afforestation, beach nourishment, etc. The anti-sea erosion methods are now all the more important in the context of global warming and the resultant rise of the sea level. This is the added factor on the already fragile coastal eco-system caused by heavy developmental constructions and unscientific methods. In some coasts, even the anti-sea erosion construction method such as sea – walls with the granites and the concrete slabs themselves cause sea-erosion!

In this scenario, beach nourishment is a soft armoring method that not only remain as a barrier to the sea-waves swallowing the coasts, but also create additional beach or in other words retake back the lost beaches.

Beach nourishment or beach filling is achieved by mining the sand from the sea bottom and use the same to fill the eroding beaches and thus widen the width of the beaches. There are also instances of sourcing the sand or sediments from nearby locations.

Image courtesy: Hakai Magazine

Image courtesy: Explore Beaches

In spite of the fact that beach nourishment is a soft armoring, this method is also not free from shortcoming. The forces that caused the erosion continue to prevail over the vulnerable beaches. Because of that the nourished or filled beaches require periodic maintenance. This has strong bearing on the cost aspect. The blocks of sands instantly filled can cause damage to the existing beach eco-system.