With erosion threatening cliffs, accesses and bathing areas between Quarteira and Garrão, APA advanced in spring with an artificial feed of 1.4 million m³ of sediment to reinforce almost 7 km of coastline before the summer season.
At the beginning of this year, one of the largest recent interventions of coastal defense: the artificial feeding of approximately 6.7 kilometers of seafront between Quarteira and Garrão, in the municipality of Loulé.
The intervention, as explained by one from the Ministry of Environment and Energy, aims to mitigate erosion and reinforce essential beaches for one of the country’s main tourist regions.
The operation, which began in April, involves the dredging of around 1.4 million m³ of offshore sediments, the equivalent of more than 2 million tons of sandand its subsequent deposition on the sand, where it is spread and modeled to reconstruct the natural profile of the beaches.
The process is known as artificial beach nourishmentexplains: instead of lifting walls, walls or other heavy structuresinvolves returning sediment to the coastal system, increasing the width of the sand and creating a natural barrier against the action of waves, wind and storms.
The intervention aims to protect a particularly vulnerable section of the Algarve coast, between Quarteira and Garrão, where erosion has caused the coastline to retreat and increased the risk on sandy cliffs, accesses, infrastructure and bathing areas.
At the end of the project, the Government expects that an average expansion of around 37.5 meters from the emerging part of the beaches.
The work, which can be followed in one of the Portuguese Environment Agency (which includes a ), aims to mitigate cliff erosionstabilize the entire coastal section and avoid negative effects in the Ria Formosa barrier island system.
The Portuguese south coast has been affected by winter stormsrising sea levels, scarcity of sediments and changes in coastal dynamics. In the case of the Quarteira-Garrão section, the Government itself recognizes that the evolution of retreat rates in recent decades hasreveals a worsening of erosion also associated with construction of marine works.
Before the intervention, environmental studies were carried out and sediment borrowing areas on the seabed were assessed, to ensure that the sand removed offshore had features compatible with the existing on the beaches.
The project planning also took into account the need to reduce the impact on the bathing season and about tourist activity in the region.
Despite the size of the operation, this It’s not a permanent solution.
Artificial beach nourishment allows buy time and reduce the immediate exposure of the coast, but the replenished sand will eventually be displaced again by the sea, wind and currents, as happened after previous interventions in the region, including an artificial feeding carried out in 2010.
For now, the Algarve has bought time on a vulnerable coastal front: it has reinforced almost seven kilometers of beaches with a seemingly simple but technically demanding: move more than 2 million tons of sand.
