Stabilisation of Barcelona’s beaches
The Barcelona metropolitan seafront is a system characterised by a series of areas of a markedly antropic nature. These beaches, mostly of artificial origin, form part of a highly dynamic coastal system and experience constant modification as a natural response to the action of the waves. It should be noted that this system is based on a lack of natural contributions of sediment and, therefore, the volume and width of these beaches is the result of the balance between man-made contributions and the loss of sediment caused by the impact of waves and sea currents.
In order to prevent the progressive loss of sediment on the beaches, the coastline has a series of coastal protection infrastructures (jetties and emergent and submerged breakwaters). However, despite the stabilisation work carried out, Barcelona’s beaches continue to lose ground on a global scale. According to the topo-bathymetric monitoring carried out periodically by Barcelona Regional, which studies the stability of Barcelona’s beaches (conducted by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia as part of the Coastal Plan), and the video-monitoring of these beaches (conducted by the Coastal Ocean Observatory (COO) team at the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM) of the CSIC), the following conclusion has been reached: the behaviour of Barcelona’s beaches is clearly erosive. In fact, all of the city’s beaches experience sand erosion and a receding coastline to a greater or lesser extent.
It is therefore necessary to manage the sediment on the beaches in order to minimise, as far as possible, the loss of the existing sand or to periodically replenish it. Taking into account the loss of sediment suffered by the beaches in their innermost area, which is critical for the availability of a backshore of sufficient functionality and with practically no capacity for natural recovery, it is proposed to compensate this over the time scale of the Coastal Plan (10 years) by means of artificial contributions of sand.
