Gen Liu, Feng Cai, Hongshuai Qi, Jianhui Liu, Gang Lei, Jun Zhu, Huimei Cao, Jixiang Zheng, Shaohua Zhao, and Fan Yu, 2020. “A summary of beach nourishment in China: The past decade of practices”, Shore & Beach, 88(3), 65-73.
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http://doi.org/10.34237/1008836
A summary of beach nourishment in China: The past decade of practices
Gen Liu(1, 2), Feng Cai(*1, 2), Hongshuai Qi(1, 2), Jianhui Liu(1), Gang Lei(1, 2), Jun Zhu(1, 2), Huimei Cao(1, 2), Jixiang Zheng(1, 2), Shaohua Zhao(1, 2) and Fan Yu(3)
1) Third Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Xiamen 361005, Fujian, China
2) Fujian Key Laboratory of Marine Ecological Protection and Restoration, Xiamen 361005, Fujian, China
3) Island Research Center, Ministry of Natural Resources, Pingtan 350400, Fujian, China
*Corresponding author: Third Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, No. 178 Daxue Road,
Xiamen 361005, Fujian, China.
Beach nourishment has been widely used for beach protection around the world. However, there is limited information about beach nourishment in China. This study offers an overview of beach nourishment practices, status and technological advances in China, based on the literature, reports, and personal communications. The results demonstrate that beach nourishment has been recognized as an effective and environmentally friendly measure to combat coastal erosion and has been increasingly adopted in China, especially in the past decade. The unique characteristics of coastal China resulted in a difference in beach nourishment between China and Western developed countries in terms of the types, objectives, and shapes of beach nourishment. For the types of nourishments in China, there were approximately the same number of restored beaches and newly constructed beaches. For fill sediment, homogeneous fill and heterogeneous fill comprised 51.1% and 48.9% of projects, respectively. The objective of beach nourishment was mainly to promote coastal tourism, and the shape of nourished beaches was dominated by headland bays. This study also indicated that China has achieved a number of technological advances in beach nourishment, including methods of beach nourishment on severely eroded coasts and muddy coasts, an optimized design of drain pipes involved in urban beaches, and ecological design considerations. From the past decade of practices, four aspects were proposed as considerations for future nourishment: sand sources, technique advances, ecological effects, and management of beach nourishments.