Geography Essay

One soft coastal management strategy would be that of beach nourishment. Beach nourishment is a common method used by many countries, including Singapore and the United States, among other influential countries. Its main objective is to import sediment and replenish materials lost through longshore drift and erosion from destructive waves, and is one of the more popular soft coastal management systems worldwide. This is usually done on a large scale, and extends the beach seawards, usually by close to a kilometre, depending on the local environment or necessity. With the replenishment of new sediment, it greatly improves the quality of the beach, and increases protection from storms and tides, protecting upland structures and infrastructures from storm surges, tsunamis, and unusually high tides.

A successful example would be that of Florida beach in Miami. The state’s Beach Erosion Control Program (BECP), which aims is “to develop and implement a long term regional proactive beach management program for the state of Florida”, protects and restores its beaches through a comprehensive beach management planning program that played its part in extending the Miami beach shoreline by 762m in efforts to counter erosional forces, and now results in Miami beach being one of the nation’s most popular tourism site as well as contributing to making the state’s seaside aesthetically pleasing.

However, beach nourishment requires a great amount of continuous sustainability since it only mitigates erosion instead of permanently solving the problem, not including the starting cost for the import of sufficient sand. It is significantly costly to transport large quantities of sand to fill up the beach, and needs constant resupply to ensure sustainability, as longshore drift and destructive waves will still act upon it. Also, the sand being eroded and transported by waves and wind can affect the marine ecosystem.

The second possible soft engineering strategy is the growth