HAMMAMET, TUNISIA: In the Tunisian coastal city of Hammamet, bulldozers are busy shoveling sand from the nearby desert onto a popular beach in an effort to stop it from disappearing due to erosion.
“This beach is like a postcard image of Hammamet,” said environmental activist Chiheb Ben Freire, looking longingly at the town’s iconic Yasmine Beach.
“It is etched in our memories from childhood,” he added, as workers worked to restore Tunisia’s central sandy coast to its former glory.
Like many other coastal areas in North Africa, severe erosion has erased many of Hammamet's sandy beaches in recent years, hitting the popular holiday resort about 65 kilometres (40 miles) east of the capital Tunis hard.
Coastlines around the world are constantly changing, with the ocean depositing and depositing sediment.
However, human activities, including coastal property development and offshore sand mining, greatly accelerate beach erosion.
Among other impacts, construction or coastal defenses in an area can block the movement of sediment along the coastline, causing new sediment to disappear from existing beaches.
Studies have shown that the impacts of climate change, including rising temperatures and sea levels, are making this phenomenon worse.
According to the UK's National Oceanography Centre, sea levels in the Mediterranean have risen faster in the past 20 years than in the entire 20th century, and coastlines are changing dramatically.
According to the United Nations, the oceans are warming 20 percent faster than the rest of the world.
Tunisia's coastline has been a huge asset to the struggling Mediterranean nation, which aims to attract around 10 million tourists this year.
Tourism accounts for up to 14% of the country's GDP and provides tens of thousands of jobs in a country where unemployment is over 16% and youth unemployment is as high as 40%.
According to official figures from last year, Tunisia has already lost more than 90 kilometers of beach to erosion.
Tunisia reports that it has 570km of sandy beaches suitable for swimming, 190km of which are in danger of disappearing.
The beaches most affected by erosion are often located near cities.
Tunisian environmental groups and the government's Coastal Protection and Development Agency (APAL) blame human activities and coastal construction for the rapid coastal erosion, which they say is being exacerbated by climate change.
“The construction project was not designed to respect coastal dynamics,” an APAL official told AFP.
To save Hammamet, one of the worst-hit beaches in Tunisia, authorities began transporting about 750 trucks loaded with sand from Kairouan, a desert region about 110 kilometers (70 miles) inland, last month, according to the World Bank.
APAL, which operates under the Ministry of Environment, was in a race against time to repopulate the beaches before the peak tourist season.
But while rebuilding beaches – or beach nourishment – may be a quick fix, “it’s not a sustainable solution,” Ben Fred said.
“This sand may not last long,” added the secretary-general of the Environmental Education Association.
“If a storm comes, it could swallow us up in a matter of days,” he said, similar to the summer of 2023.
This process can be expensive.
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 local residents, restoring their precious coastline is worth the effort.
Yasmine Beach is “Hammamet's showcase”, said Narges Bouasker, who runs the town's Menara hotel and heads the local hotel association.
“We need to reclaim the beaches that the sea has swallowed,” she said, calling for a balance between protecting landscapes cherished by both locals and foreign tourists and combating coastal erosion.
“The most important thing for us is not to touch the beauty of the city,” she said.
Buasker said that while there is growing awareness among authorities, backfilling beaches with sand is still a gamble.
“You never know how the ocean will react,” she added.
