Beach nourishment (case studies) - Essay Example

In order to nourish the beach, 7.5 million cubic metres of sand was brought in from a licensed area 20 KM offshore. Dredgers were anchored 500 metres offshore and released the new beach material into a floating pipeline, which carried one lorry load, which is equivalent to 20 tonnes, every 15 seconds to its new destination. Every metre of the 19 kilometres of coastline in the area was required to receive 45 of these lorry loads in order to be completed, which explains why the project took such a long time to complete.

A dialogue was opened with fishermen in the area in order to protect their business while this project was being completed. Before work on this project commenced, the company that was given the contract had to conduct a strategic study, as “The project was handled in partnership between HAM Dredging Ltd and South Coast Shipping“ (BMAPA). This included monitoring the beach profile, environmental monitoring, and flood and coastal processes modelling. Then, once the project was started, the actual beach nourishment project began.

This included taking an annual survey and assessing the depleted beach levels, giving technical advice on the license application for offshore dredging, and supervising the dredging and recharge of the beach. This project was a very expensive one in the end because of all the different factors that had to be included. Since the plan was to renew a large coastline between Ingoldmells Point, north of Skegness, and the resort of Mablethorpe, a great deal of material had to be included. While the process is very simple, this material takes time to transport, as well as money.

Sand is dredged from where it has been previously deposited after it has moved south along the Lincolnshire Coast. This material is then brought by dredger and piped into the beach, which is a very expensive process. The sand on the beach is when levelled and tidied in order to make the surface smooth, rather than allowing for material to collect along