HAMMAMET, Tunisia: In the Tunisian coastal town of Hammamet, bulldozers are busy shoveling sand from the nearby desert onto a popular beach to prevent it from disappearing through erosion.
“This beach is the postcard image of Hammamet,” said environmentalist Chiheb Ben Fredj, looking nostalgically at the city’s iconic Yasmine Beach.
“It has been etched in our memory since childhood,” he added, as workers labored to restore Tunisia's central waterfront to its former sandy glory.
As in many other coastal areas of North Africa, many of Hammamet's sandy beaches have disappeared in recent years due to severe erosion, which is likely to affect the popular holiday paradise about 65 kilometers east of the capital Tunis.
Coastlines around the world are subject to constant natural change as the sea absorbs and deposits sediment.
But human activities, including coastal development and offshore sand mining, are significantly accelerating beach erosion.
Among other impacts, construction and coastal protection measures in an area can prevent sediment from being transported along the coast, thereby depriving existing beaches of new material.
Studies have also shown that the effects of climate change, including rising temperatures and sea levels, are exacerbating the phenomenon.
In the Mediterranean, where sea levels have risen faster in the past 20 years than in the entire 20th century, according to the UK's National Oceanography Centre, coastlines are changing rapidly.
In addition, according to the United Nations, the ocean is warming 20 percent faster than the rest of the world.
The Tunisian coast is a great advantage for the Mediterranean state with a weak economy, as the country plans to welcome around 10 million tourists this year.
Tourism contributes up to 14 percent to the country's gross domestic product and provides tens of thousands of jobs in a country where unemployment is over 16 percent and 40 percent among young people.
According to official figures from last year, Tunisia has already lost more than 90 kilometers of beach due to erosion.
Of the country's 570 kilometers of sandy beaches suitable for swimming, 190 kilometers are in danger of disappearing, according to Tunisian reports.
Many of the beaches most affected by erosion are located near cities.
Tunisian environmental groups and the state agency for coastal protection and development (APAL) blame human activities and construction work on the coast for the rapid erosion. They say climate change will make the situation even worse.
“Coastal dynamics were not taken into account when planning the construction projects,” an APAL representative told AFP.
To save Hammamet beach, which the World Bank says is one of the worst-hit beaches in Tunisia, authorities last month began transporting around 750 truckloads of sand from the desert province of Kairouan, about 110 kilometers inland.
APAL, which is under the Ministry of Environment, was in a race against time to replenish the beach before the peak of the tourist season.
But while restoring the beaches, known as beach replenishment, may be a quick fix, “it is not a sustainable solution,” says Ben Fredj.
“This sand may not last long,” added the secretary general of the Environmental Education Association.
“That can be swallowed up in a storm in a matter of days,” he said, as will be the case in the summer of 2023.
The process can also prove costly.
Coastal authorities estimated the cost of restoring sand on three beaches in Hammamet, Monastir and Sfax at 3.9 million Tunisian dinars ($1.25 million).
But for the locals, the restoration of their priceless beach promenade is worth the money.
Yasmine Beach “is a flagship for Hammamet,” says Narjess Bouasker, who runs the city’s Menara Hotel and is president of the regional hotel association.
“We need to take back our beach that the sea has swallowed,” she said, calling for a balance between protecting the landscape, which is valued by locals and foreign visitors alike, and fighting coastal erosion.
“Our priority is not to compromise the beauty of the city,” she said.
Bouasker said she is seeing increasing awareness among authorities, but replenishing beaches with sand is still a gamble.
“We don’t know how the sea will react,” she added.
