1.8 million m3 beach nourishment project in Sri Lanka
Type:
Presented during:
WODCON XVII: "Dredging in a Sensitive Environment" - 2004, Hamburg, Germany
Authors:
Dr. H-J. Scheffer, H.N.R. Perera, K. Ender, Dr. P. Fröhle
Abstract: Beach Nourishment is considered as the most environmental friendly and socially accepted method to stabilise coastlines which suffer from erosion as result of a deficit in the sediment budget. At the west coast of Sri Lanka, some 50 km north of the capital Colombo, just north of the Maha Oya severe shoreline erosion has destroyed valuable coastal resources during the last decade. This has been partly caused by a successful coastal stabilisation scheme further south, which has blocked sediment drift to the north, but in particular by the reduction of sand supply by the rivers to the coast due to heavy sand mining.
Although beach nourishment has been considered for long time in Sri Lanka by several visiting Consultant it was always thought that such a strategy will not be a sustainable concept in a developing country because of the continuous replenishment requirements and high maintenance costs. Being certainly correct, this assumption has very seldom substantiated with real economic figures.
As part of the Asian Development Bank financed Coastal Resources Management Project sand fill and beach nourishment (in total 3.7 million m3) has been designed and 3.4 mill m3 already contracted to stabilise 4 our of the 7 the most critical coastal stretches. In total 1.8 million m3 nourishment shall be supplied to the stretch north of the Maha Oya.
1 million has been already supplied prior to the 2003 SW monsoon and the balance will be nourished end 2004.
Keywords: coastal stabilization, beach nourishment, EIA procedures, dredging costs, production cycle