Coastal protection
Coastal protection refers to the measures aimed at protecting the coast mostly against shoreline retreat, overwash and coastal flooding. It aims at protecting housing, infrastructure, the coast and the hinterland from erosion and storm impacts often at the expense of losing the beach and the dynamic coastal landscape [1].
Hard coastal protection includes all the engineering works based on using traditional materials like rocks, cement, iron and wood to hold the shoreline in a given position, to promote sediment accretion along beaches, to increase the height of longshore structures that protect coastal human occupied areas or to stabilize coastal cliffs. Examples are seawalls, revetments, breakwaters, bulkheads and groins. The efficiency of these actions are usually restricted to the nearby updrift areas where sediment gets trapped. The downdrift areas tend to start being impacted by the same problem, sediment starvation, meaning the problem was not solved; it was merely transferred to a new spot. Hard engineering works are seen as permanent solutions but the natural wearing cause by waves forces the need to keep a high-cost maintenance.
Soft coastal protection encompasses actions that reduce the vulnerability of the coast by promoting natural dynamic processes. These include artificial beach nourishment, sand fences that lead to wind borne sand deposition and dune development, plantation of natural dune vegetation. These actions are many times implemented together and tend to have little negative impacts on the coast. Due to their dynamic character they should never be seen as permanent. They should therefore be planned within a long-term coastal protection strategy that foresees their periodic repetition.