CoastCare HBS System

Soft Engineering Coastal Solutions

Coastal Erosions

Land-based activities and natural physical processes have resulted in significant modifications of the shorelines in many countries, with drastic effects on the coastal geomorphology as well as on the coastal infrastructures. There is an urgent need to introduce new and cost-effective measures that can reduce and mitigate the impacts on the shorelines.

Conventional solutions comprise physical constructions such as boulders, groynes, breakwaters, etc., as well as rehabilitation of beaches with nourishment of sand and dewatering systems with pumps. Until recently, most coastal defence activity was based on traditional hard engineering solutions. These are hard structures such as breakwaters, groynes, sea walls, submerged or emerged structures in the near-shore.

Other developments have been soft engineering approaches such as beach nourishment, beach dewatering, groundwater pressure equalisation and hydrodynamic stabilisation. Most of these methods are associated with high logistics and implementation costs as well as high maintenance expenses.

No matter which solution is chosen, there will always be an environmental impact to a greater or lesser degree.

Coastal managers today have to work within the constraints of global and national environmental guidelines / policies which create a need for new environmentally friendly, cost-effective soft engineering solutions with minimum impact on the environment.

Therefore, there is an urgent need to introduce new methods and technologies that are in harmony with these guidelines / policies. Recognising this need, CoastCare has developed a system based on hydrodynamic stabilisation to combat coastal erosion.

Hydrodynamic stabilisation is radically different to dredging, sand nourishment and groyne building methods. It is a soft engineering approach to combat beach erosion and makes the lowest impact on the environment.

It works on the principle of changing the permeability of the beach in the swash zone to increase the ability of the beach to reduce beach sediment leaching by the sea. It increases the infiltration/ex-filtration rate of the beach in the swash zone and enhances the ability of the beach to capture sediment transported by the sea on to the beach.

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