AN OVERVIEW OF BEACH NOURISHMENT IN CHINA

A set of beach nourishment projects for 13 beaches in China,which were under severe erosion,have been completed or basically completed,after two years of implementation.The projects cover a total of 10.39 km of coast line.The total volume of sand used is about 2 027 000 m³,196.3 m³/m coastline on average.Most of the beach nourishment work can keep a dry beach around 50m in width.Some of projects are not very effective,since the sand has the tendency to become coarser or muddy,and may be eroded away soon.Compared with the similar projects abroad,the beach nourishment in China is characterized by its small scale,rapid development,wide range and that both soft and hard engineering methods were used.There is still much work to do,such as the classification of beach nourishment,the establishment of evaluation standards,and prediction of beach's lifespan as well as rationale management.