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Beaches and shorelines change dramatically over time - they aren't supposed to be static systems. When we build homes and cities and infrastructure next to beaches, we tie the ecosystem to an arbitrary point in time, and we limit the ability of that beach to migrate inland in response to rising sea levels. Beach nourishment can be a useful tool, but we also need to consider longer-term strategies like managed retreat (moving developments away from the shoreline to give the beach room to change and adapt).
Or even just preventing some of the beech antagonistic behaviors a liiiitle bit. Plant dunes, depres synthetic fertlizers, do anthing to allow reef proliferation. Or just wait till all the ice is melted then we should be in some period of ocean level stability.
That would be too much non antropocentric. We like to boost our ego acting as the saviours of the nature while our only real goal is to preserve statically what we find somehow useful for human society. Besides that we demonstrate multiple times how good we are at managing ecosystems no? Obviously is out "duty and right" to manipulate the nature more becouse of what our manipulations did so far.
The beach at the town I grew up in was "re-sanded" by dredging sand from deep water onto the shore to cover the barnacle encrusted rocks, so it would be easier to walk out to deeper water. It destroyed clam beds, kelp forests and left the beaches covered with sharp bits of shells and lumps of sticky clay. The shorebirds had to move on as the shore was destroyed, the crab fisherman lost their livelihood for years until it recovered.
Stupid clams, didn't they get the humans memo that mega tons of sand were incoming?!? lol reminds me of the hitch hikers guide where the aliens bulldoze earth for the galactic equivalent of a highway..
That sounds like they tried to make a sandy beach out of shoreline that wasn't, rather than restoring or maintaining an existing area of sand. That's modification not restoration and dire consequences usually result from modifications we make.
The ocean at Keawa’ula Beach on Oahu (Also called Yokohama) is so naturally dynamic! The winter storms rip ALL the sand out, leaving just exposed rock for a mile. But when the trade winds return and the storms come from the opposite direction, the ocean brings the sand back! It’s currently like 15 feet deep and the shoreline is so wide, in late July! I take photos there every month because the sheer power of the ocean to change the beach so dramatically is incredible to watch!
In Denmark, we build these T’s diagonal from the beach. They are about 20 meters out from the coast and a few hundred meters apart. That has stopped the ocean from taking away the sad. We also have these special drainage rods that actually make the waves deposit more sand than they take away. This way we don’t have to move sand by machinery. Much better for the nature and environment.
Throughout the entire video, I was hoping he would address this. Break walls and similar structures are a much better solution to reduce erosion and provide shelter for sea life. Re-sanding beaches is strictly about retaining property value. The video showed Coney Island as an example, which has no nature on it at all. No habitats are being saved there.
In the Netherlands they built a sand engine. A large 'beach' meant to erode naturally so the sand is deposited on other beaches that would erode otherwise.
"Using millions of tonnes of sand, engineers create sand motors by extending a section of the shoreline out into the sea, creating an artificial peninsula. The ocean’s wave action acts as a "motor" that pushes the sand along the coastline as time passes. As a result, the beach gradually regenerates and the coast is protected from erosion." "The anticipated working time of the Sand Motor is at least 20 years, during which it is expected that wind, waves and currents spread the sand along the coast between the Hook of Holland and Scheveningen. However, the complete redistribution of the deposited sand will certainly take more than 20 years, with benefits of the Sand Motor also after the first 20 years. After the first four years from the Sand Motor construction, monitoring results indicated that 95% of the sand volume is still in the deposit area, suggesting that the lifespan of the pilot project could be longer than expected."
There's a park in Alabama that uses old Christmas trees to help build dunes. They help catch sand blowing inland and keep it on the beach l, and might also help native grasses take root.
In the Netherlands for decades we have used this "zandmotor" (sand engine) where we dump sand in one particular spot along the coast, near Den Haag (The Hague) and have it resupply the beaches upstream in a less invasive way (I think). Doesn't fix the foreign sand issue, but might make it less stressful for all that lives there.
Seems like we are just making more problems trying to fix beaches "disappearing". Mining tons of sand from the bottom of the ocean (where things live) and dumping it onto a beach (where other things live) in an attempt to resist the rising see seems like seems destructive at worst and futile at best.
100 pictures of Beaches and harbors compared to recent pictures show no evidence of rising sea level. 60s picture of earth compared to Recent pictures of earth shows no evidence of shrinking ice caps
It's how we do things around here, little to no thought is put in the only thing we care about is the "result" but we can't even imagine the impact of things until it's too late. Like you said there are living things where the sand is being taken from and where it is being placed. Seems like a lot of death in both places and the bigger the project the more insane the damage will be to the ecosystem. There has to be a better solution to the problem, I just don't see this practice working out in the long run. There are so many creatures living in the sand that you never see.
I remember reading about a community in, I wanna say England, that buries it's Christmas trees on the beach every January, which helps keep the sand in place and fosters the growth of native grasses that further shore up the dunes.
Louisiana has been using a similar technique with the used trees to stop theor coastline from eroding away. Replanting grasses & other coastal plants is good, but I think I literally saw Florida running up a beach with just a single species, planting it out like a rice plantation & said it'd grow in a lot faster & hardier if you used multiple different Native species & didn't line them all up in perfect little rows, like that.
As noted, we've been doing nourishment for decades. I've been aware of them doing it in my hometown for 40 years. And they keep doing it. Because they have to. Because the glorified sand bars we build communities on just weren't meant to be static. The beach is constantly changing and we have to compensate to maintain what we've created. For better or worse, whether you like the pros or fear the cons - either way - it will be done. Repeatedly. And some may argue for naught, because the next Cat 4+ will still push a 15' storm surge and wreak havoc on the area anyway.
sandy Barrier Islands like the Outer Banks or Chandelier Islands should’ve been/should be allowed to roll over, but because of private property that’s not possible. Mainland sandy beaches might just be moved inland as during smaller swells sand is deposited allowing for accretion, although during larger swells there is rapid erosion. Again, this will be prevented because of private property, which may mean we lose the whole habitat all together. It’s a choice of private ownership of property or preservation of the beach.
I saw one of these sand moving operations at the beach one year. They were bringing sand from off shore onto the beach. They had this really big tube going into the ocean and a bunch of trucks nearby.
There's also Dams. I'm in AZ and a not-insignificant-portion of our state's non-tax-revenue is selling sand to CA at a massive discount due to the power we get from Boulder ("Hoover") Dam which stops the sand from flowing downstream.
Maybe if the beach nourishment was done similarly to suatainable forestry, it would work and be less destructive to lical ecosystems. What i mean by this is - you start by selecting the sand that is the closest in its ateibutes to hat is/used to be natively in the area. Then, instead of dumping all at once in one thoroughful swipe, the beach in question could be divided into zones, where each zone gets covered in a patchwork fashion with a certain time delay between individual dumps. That way, the area where the sand was dumped could get colonised by critters from the neighbouring area, which would then get some time to settle down and eventually recolonize their previous spot that got covered by the sand later on. Kind of like reseeding the forest with tree at different times, so you end up with trees of different ages with a variety canopy heights. But, you know, a beach. It would be definitely lesa drastic than basically nuking the whole beach at once in a matter of a single month or something
Washington state has some nice rocky beaches, with animals that can hang on to rocks. The beaches with more gravel than sand are better places to find pretty rocks like agates...
I beg to differ. There are lots of places in the world where people come from that far away or farther to go to rocky beaches. For example much of the beaches along the North American west coast are rocky beaches (they only get sandy around 2\3 of the way down California. The other 2/3 of the California coastline and everything north of that is rocky). There are lots and lots of popular beaches that are rocky in that area. They’re all cold and rocky beaches.
Obviously, You have never been to Cutty New Jersey or England. 8/ We have Ft Fischer here in NC.., The only rocky beach within 800 miles.. People love it. 8/
As answer to the question "is this the way to go" the answer is yes, as I am Dutch. Half my country is below sea level, so the sand banks and beaches are the first line of defence. The second are the dunes. If the sandbanks and beaches get washed away, so will the dunes and the Netherlands would simply flood. It did in 1953, which led to the construction of the Delta Works. A moveable sea barrier, closing off the river delta that is province of Zeeland. In the 1920's, the Zuiderzee was closed off with the Afsluitdijk, turning it into a brackish lake called the IJsselmeer. In the 1970's, an entire province was built in that lake, called Flevoland. A couple of decades ago, a huge moveable barrier was built to protect Rotterdam harbour, called the Maaskering. It consists of two Eiffel tower sized, curved pontoons, that get floated out in the river, filled up with water and submerged to protect the city and hinterland from flooding. I think it is the largest moveable flood barrier in the world. The Dutch helped rebuild the sea defences for New Orleans, making them much, much better. If you wonder what the state of the oceans are, just look at the Netherlands. It is literally life or death here, so we're usually the first to act.
You forgot the zandmolen DeltaDuin, a pilot project for beach nourishing in a natural way, that doesn’t have all the problems mentioned in this video. Apart from getting the sand. Maar misschien wist je dit nog niet, ik hoorde er pas vorig jaar voor het eerst over. Het is al wel een verplicht onderwerp by aardrijkskunde.
I llive *on* a nourished beach that's been revamped post-Sandy. It's going well, and attracts a lot more oystercatchers than it used to. Not all bad results, then.
The Dutch have a solution to all the problems you mentioned 10 years ago. The so called Zandmotor, the sand engine. Always check the Dutch when you do a video about coastal protection and coastal ecosystems. 😀 There are several videos about it on UA-cam, under the title sand motor. From Wikipedia: sand engine or sand motor (Dutch: zandmotor) is a type of beach nourishment where a large volume of sediment is added to a coast. The natural forces of wind, waves and tides then distribute the sand along the coast over many years, preventing the need for repetitive beach nourishment. The method is expected to be more cost effective and also reduces the repeated ecological disturbances caused by replenishment.
What if you just add the sand really gradually? Like a few buckets a day all year round? Replace it as it's eroding so you never disturb it all at once. And the changes in sand type will be really gradual. As for getting the sand: Go deep instead of wide. Pick a spot, and just dig deeper in that one place as long as you can. You don't have to get a lot at any one time, but by going back to the same spot each time, you're disturbing a smaller area. It'll fill in a little bit between digs anyway. When it gets too deep to be feasible, you pick spot that's not terribly far away, maybe even just 100 meters. The first spot will start filling in. After a while, you just rotate between two or three spots that'll always just be sand "wells". And get the sand via a pump rather than scraping the ocean or river floor. If you can do it with oil, you can do it with sand.
One approach used here in the Netherlands is what's called a Sand Motor. It's essentially an artificial pier made of sand, that juts out far into the sea. As coastal currents erode the pier, they then deposit the sand onto the beaches at a slow, constant, manageable rate. This simultaneously puts far less stress on the vulnerable ecosystem, and provides species with a more sheltered area to hide from strong currents, big waves or otherwise rough weather. And because it is intentionally built to be impermanent, or at least impermanent enough that the ground is constantly being cycled out as you refill the lost sand, you can't really build any lasting structures on top of it. This means that the Sand Motor itself becomes an excellent space for coastal plants & animals to make their habitats as well, and so they become lovely parks & nature reserves suitable for all sorts of transient fun & appreciation.
I may have a small solution to the problem though it may cost more money in the long run. Sand sheets dropped by planes(crop dusters). Wind may be an issue so the planes may have to fly closer to the ground than normal. Thin layers of sand dropped by planes over the course of a week or two. This will allow buried clams to move closer to the surface. You would also have to do this on the off season when there are no turtle eggs of course. The birds may get covered in sand but they can dust it off or could even be temporarily scared off for the plan to work the day of. It would take fewer men, could cover a large area and be less harmful to the environment. The beach just has to close for a day so the sand settles.
Oddly, depending on the beach, the hardest part of that besides economic scale (and weight of the sand cargo) might be flying ultra low to the ground ... that close to major population centers and thus, buildings.
Yeah, Juliana Turchetti died in a crash earlier this month; she was so sweet and will be missed. Flying a Fire Boss would be different, but it seems similar enough that other experienced aviators would eventually die resanding like that. And it would be even worse in heavily populated areas. Fighting massive wildfires is worth the risk, but I'm not sure that is.
@@chompsn9 I am sorry to hear that. My condolences for Juliana's family and friends. I am not a pilot and don't fully know the risks. I am sure there may be beaches this will not work. I will argue resanding is not as dangerous as fighting a wildfire. What she did was a very dangerous profession and I respect her for it. A beach has no smoke to deal with or fire currents. For descending/ascending they could turn towards the ocean to do so. Maybe there are other less risky solutions as well. It's important to put one's thoughts out there. Conversations like this may just help find a true solution.
I live in Sydney and one night I went to Bondi Beach at about 3am (anxiety things) and saw a large number of huge dump trucks dropping piles of sand onto the shore. I was utterly astounded.
As a Dutch person who grew up knowing several people who work for the government, specifically in the water-related-stuff department, I love this. So much I recognise and even more I didn't even know about
This is partially true, but in the majority of situations the bigger cause is vegetation loss (especially mangrove trees) and natural shifts in atoll shorelines. Environmentalist are doing the world a disservice by trying to blame everything on climate change.
I remember the most beautiful beach sand in my hometown. It was vast thick laid flat sand with cumulus of finest particles having been formed thousands of thousands years long so we could walk there up to at least a hundred meter from the beach without flailing for swimming. And the sand was soft fine with no hole nor stones small peddles to hurt foot at the bottom. It was drained on building constructions by heavy machinery and the scale of scooping the sand was enormous enough to make many sink holes on the bottom of the sea bed. When the constructors took away a large proportion of the sand, suddenly the seashore didn't hold its sand anymore. All sands began to be washed away by the waves starting to change the seascape of the beach. It used to be the most beautiful beach, but with the problem of sand washing away, its beautiful renounced beach sand no longer maintained its fame. So government hastily dropped the sand from somewhere else, but in vain. Once washing away was started, there was no way to stop it. That's how we spoiled the most beautiful seascape as well as the finest golden sea sand beach in my city. I hate those constructors. And despite pouring down new sands x times of its drained volume, the seashore didn't restore its original shape. It happened during the period of my country's rapid development. Along with the beach, countless ponds and springs, brooks were all gone for good.
: They did that near Southport, NC and nearby beaches in the '80s and '90s, and in most places they did it, the dunes were 30' to 100' back in twenty years (and several hurricanes). My aunt and uncle on Oak Island, NC had their old house about 200' back from the coastal road up to Fort Fisher. By 2005, the coastal road was just under the water at low tide, and the coastal road was moved back to about 100' or so from the house. And the house was eventually condemned because of all the water damage from the big storms. (The house was on a roughly 30' elevation from the coastal road.) -- Mayhaps the beach sand the state used back in the '80s and '90s was the wrong kind of sand.
I wonder if something could be buried beyond the tideline where the sand collects and pump it back up on shore slowly so things aren't impacted as heavily and the coral doesn't get too disturbed... Like a French drain with an auger that builds a small dune back on shore
In the Netherlands they're experimenting with a sand engine. Basically an artificial sand bank just off the coast. Water currents take sand from this to the beaches. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_engine
After Hurricane Camille (Category 5 at landfall) hit the Mississippi gulf coast in August 1969, they literally had to replace the beach by dredging sand out of Mississippi Sound. The water was going right up to old Highway 90.
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Question 1: In a hypothetical world where sea levels aren't rising would we have to nourish beaches at all? And if it still needed to occur, how sparingly would it be with an ocean that isn't actively trying to encroach in on us everywhere?? Question 2: What about the really unique beaches, like Hawaii's "Peridot" (technically Olivine), how would you nourish that beach without diluting the essence of what it is??? Theft however little of the sand has already in a way diluted it to be less vibrant anyways, so is there truly anyway to preserve it via replenishment??
haven't beaches been getting washed out since the dawn of time? tropical storms and hurricanes aren't anything new. but they been washing away beaches for a long time.
Hey @SciShow Please know your new video set up, location, background, and everything is a very nice, modern change, and it really brings a nice feel to the channel. Unique, homey feeling, very Nice!
That's already done on an industrial scale for excavation and construction. The problem is transportation, since you can't just do that on site, and both materials are heavy.
Super useful if the government already dredges the “river” near your beaches for “security purposes.” By river I mean tidal fjord and by security purposes, I mean submarines. Add in all the crushed shells from area seafood places that offer locally farmed clams… seems to have been working for New England. Keep in mind, the dredged sand all comes from the beaches it’s being returned to.
I'd like to see if the study of home destruction by beach nourishment was controlled for the per capita income of the area, I'd expect richer areas to be nourishing their beaches and having more recently built homes.
I could give a quick, flippant answer, but that is because I live in Minnesota. I'm sure these will affect my friends in California and especially Florida far more significantly.
kinda wish you mentioned desert sand, i imagine its partly the whole different sizes thing and i know you cant use it to make glass cuz its a different composition or something but felt worth mentioning
Not to mention sand is becoming a scarce resource as it's quickly being used up in the manufacturing of concrete around the would to build cities and roads. We may need to find an alternative. I do wonder what useful properties lunar dust might have once we start mining it.
I think that this question of whether or not to nourish beaches is complex. Many of the beaches that have nourishment projects are in areas that have been experiencing net erosion for a long time and will into the far future. This is compounded by the effects of climate change, where sea-level rise and increasing storm frequency and serverity in turn increase the occurance of highly erosive events and their severity. If there is a commitment to beach nourishment in these areas, even if dune vegetation or other measures to retain this sediment and trap additional sediments traveling in from other areas were put in place, the combination of a naturally erosive shoreline and climate change would mean regular beach nourishment projects to maintain these beaches. Many studies look at the short-term effects of nourishment on animals and vegetation, but we really lack long-term studies of these impacts. Changes in sediment grain sizes and sorting (the size and organization of sand grains), nutrient content of sediments, introduction of other organisms, removal of habitat from other areas, etc. all result from bring in sediment from different locations and may have long-lasting impacts. Simultaneously, climate change and human infrastructure limit the capacity of these habitats to recover naturally. Many threatened and endangered species will likely never recover without human intervention because we've changed these habitats and the environment so much. Humans have modified many environments to the point where human interventions are now necessary to try and preserve these ecosystems and species. Ideally, living vegetation via dune plantings, natural sediment influx from up-stream/up-current areas and sand bars, etc. would suffice for restoring and maintaining habitat. Dune vegetation has an incredible capacity to help build and maintain dune systems and beaches, but still need adequate sediment supply and many years (even decades) for vegetation to facilitate full dune and beach recovery following a big storm. With increasing storm frequency and severity plus sea-level rise, these ecosystems may no longer have that kind of time to recover on their own. These habitats have responded in different ways over thousands and millions of years. With barrier island systems, for example, many will "roll over" and migrate landward during times of higher sea-level, but now are artifically stabilized. What that means is, instead of sediment moving over dunes and being dumped on the far side--facilitating island movement land-ward--the sediment now gets washed away. The problem we now face is that we live in an era of global change that is so rapid many species and ecosystems simply cannot respond fast enough. Further, there are many pressures happening simultaenously--for example, beach driving, excess nutrients, pollutants, warming temperatures, ever increasing human infrastructure, changing water availability, and more--are all happening at the same time. So, I think yes we need to consider nourishment as one possible tool for protecting these areas, but we also need careful consideration about how to implement these projects. SHOULD the multi-million dollar project be used to add sand to a popular beach that we know will disappear in the next 5 years? Are there places where these projects might be more successful in the long term? Can we assess sites for their potential to contribute to the conservation of key species, coastal protection, AND recreation? Can we plan these projects for the long term to create fully functioning ecosystems that will last generations and allow us to experience these beautiful places? If so, then I think we could do great work for both humans and the natural environment, and preserve these special ecosystems far into the future.
They should source it from The Sahara. There's a lot, and should keep digging until you hit rock to see what's under the desert. Also, unlike river sand, desert sand isn't useful to make concrete. The rounder grains make it almost identical to regular beach sand.
@@Baldorcete But we don't call it "natural causes" when one person kills another. It's almost like we know there is a differ nice between human activity and other natural things and processes.
i saw the title and thought the video would be about how humans are consuming huge amounts of sand for the production of concrete. the demand is so great that there are sand poachers, often connected with organised crime.
Bring back dunes on the side of the beach away from the water. The sand will slowly travel towards the water at a less drastic speed, giving time for plants and animals to acclimate. It also acts as a wind break and is great for beach grasses to grow on
I live on the beach.. like right on the beach in Bush Point Whidbey Island.. and the tide stops in the exact same place it did when I grew up here in this house I inherited.. 60+ years.. so I assume this "rising tide" will happen sometime soon?
To be honest this is the first time I see beach rebuilding considered as a technique to preserve a natural environment. I just knew it as a way to restore beaches in places with poor urban planning, where buildings are built too close to the ocean. I’ll keep my mind open but it’s a bit hard to see it as a preservation effort
Two thoughts: First, it seems to me there must be more gradual ways to add sand to beaches than just dumping it all. I mean, I'm sure others have thought about this, but still. What if you piled up the sand a ways uphill from the beach, in a less threatened ecosystem, and let rain and occasional human intervention wash it down to the beach itself? I mean, beaches have existed for billions of years. They must be getting refilled naturally. If we just add to that process, it should be a bit less destructive, right? Like I said, I'm sure there are experts working on this problem, and I hope they're at least as smart as me😅. Second, it bothers me that we have to take sand from elsewhere to do this. It's not as if sand just *exists,* and is never created or destroyed. We know the recipe. Rocks. We know how to force-erode rocks down to whatever size particles we want. Rock tumblers are literally children's toys. Sort out the particles by size. Send the particles so small they're clay off to potters and brick makers. Send the bits in between clay and sand, called silt, to get mixed with compost and restore eroded farmlands and other silt. And send the sand to beaches, glassblowers, and so on. The shape and color of the sand will be determined partly by the starting rock, and partly by the milling process, so you can choose the right rocks and process to get the type of sand you want - the same as what is already there, except a bit rougher, so it can get worn down over time, like breaking in shoes.
So what about desert sand? Seems easier to acquire than ocean floor sand, also would re-sanding be easier on the local ecosystem if it was done in stages rather than the whole beach at once?
Sounds to me like beach nourishment wouldn't ne that bad if we just did it alower and smaller. Take less sand from the bottom of the ocean. Ads it in small segmenta (Maybelline 20m of beach nourished and 80m left as it was... It would take 5.yeara but hopefully more animals would survive it since only part of their habitat was changed and the ones that can move would move over to the old habitat until the new one became livable for them.
Funny, there were man-made lines of rocks and concrete leading down into the sea in sections about 1500 yards apart on some of the seaside resorts in my country, they had been there for about 70 years, but they removed them for some reason about 6 years ago, all the sand on those beaches is nearly gone now, washed away, the beaches have turned stoney and unpleasant to walk on with no footwear, the rocks and concrete was put there to stop that, its a real shame it was taken away,
grinding recycled glass into sand has promise; it comes in different colors, can be made into different size particles, doesn’t degrade into toxic components, and doesn’t take sand from existing ecosystems. there is no perfect solution, but we have a responsibility to our ecosystems to invest our whole selves into these problems.
No matter what we do will have a negative impact on something in most cases we won't even know what until much later and by then it's too late. An unrelated issue happening where I live is the loss of certain spider species in forests, they used to be *very* common and now they can barely find them at all and like many things they have no idea why this is happening. All this data was collecting for 100+ years so it's not a temporary fluke. What's scary is that when we're doing certain things and it happens at the very low levels of the food chain and slowly climbs up and once it affects us it could have been going on for a long time. I hope they find a better more sustainable alternative to "nourish" the beaches because I do not see how it has any beneficial impact on the ecosystem at all. I feel like it's more like we don't see or care about the negative effects so far.
One big fear i have with microplastic/nanoplastics is it may shorten all lifespans of living, blooded, creatures and thus eventually destroy and halt evolution in its tracks, or become a great obstacle for whatever intelligences may or may not develop after us Edit: I say this because of the studies with consumption of microplastics being linked to inflammation and heart problems in humans. Also adding to that, what I mean with the last sentence in the original unedited comment is that we may have destroyed earth itself by infecting living beings with the hair like, penetrating reach of micro and nano plastics until no living beings can live long enough or retain their intelligence and instincts enough to support their next of kin and evolve so forth
They created gianourmous sand dunes in New Zealand by burying used christmas trees under sand on the shore. Its a successful preservation model we should employ here in the states. Think about the future National Seashores!
Or you can create barriers with large rocks and then the sand will slowly drift to you. Which has absolutely no downsides for you or the beach your sand ends up getting stolen from. /s
Maybe beach erosion wouldnt be such a problem in the first place if we could just leave native mangrove forest and dunes grasses in place. Just about every single foot of beach has to get torn up to put up tacky, overpriced buildings.
Well the people who have the money to use to make that plan happen (the local government), also want to make their money go back into the local economy
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Beaches and shorelines change dramatically over time - they aren't supposed to be static systems. When we build homes and cities and infrastructure next to beaches, we tie the ecosystem to an arbitrary point in time, and we limit the ability of that beach to migrate inland in response to rising sea levels. Beach nourishment can be a useful tool, but we also need to consider longer-term strategies like managed retreat (moving developments away from the shoreline to give the beach room to change and adapt).
Sucks for the people who live there though
@@wan2shuffleif you can afford beach front property I'm sure you'll be fine
Or even just preventing some of the beech antagonistic behaviors a liiiitle bit. Plant dunes, depres synthetic fertlizers, do anthing to allow reef proliferation. Or just wait till all the ice is melted then we should be in some period of ocean level stability.
I agree with this idea, but can we move entire skyscrapers?
That would be too much non antropocentric. We like to boost our ego acting as the saviours of the nature while our only real goal is to preserve statically what we find somehow useful for human society. Besides that we demonstrate multiple times how good we are at managing ecosystems no? Obviously is out "duty and right" to manipulate the nature more becouse of what our manipulations did so far.
The beach at the town I grew up in was "re-sanded" by dredging sand from deep water onto the shore to cover the barnacle encrusted rocks, so it would be easier to walk out to deeper water. It destroyed clam beds, kelp forests and left the beaches covered with sharp bits of shells and lumps of sticky clay. The shorebirds had to move on as the shore was destroyed, the crab fisherman lost their livelihood for years until it recovered.
Stupid clams, didn't they get the humans memo that mega tons of sand were incoming?!? lol reminds me of the hitch hikers guide where the aliens bulldoze earth for the galactic equivalent of a highway..
That sounds like they tried to make a sandy beach out of shoreline that wasn't, rather than restoring or maintaining an existing area of sand.
That's modification not restoration and dire consequences usually result from modifications we make.
The ocean at Keawa’ula Beach on Oahu (Also called Yokohama) is so naturally dynamic! The winter storms rip ALL the sand out, leaving just exposed rock for a mile. But when the trade winds return and the storms come from the opposite direction, the ocean brings the sand back! It’s currently like 15 feet deep and the shoreline is so wide, in late July! I take photos there every month because the sheer power of the ocean to change the beach so dramatically is incredible to watch!
wow, that is so interesting!
In Denmark, we build these T’s diagonal from the beach. They are about 20 meters out from the coast and a few hundred meters apart. That has stopped the ocean from taking away the sad. We also have these special drainage rods that actually make the waves deposit more sand than they take away. This way we don’t have to move sand by machinery. Much better for the nature and environment.
Throughout the entire video, I was hoping he would address this. Break walls and similar structures are a much better solution to reduce erosion and provide shelter for sea life. Re-sanding beaches is strictly about retaining property value. The video showed Coney Island as an example, which has no nature on it at all. No habitats are being saved there.
In the Netherlands they built a sand engine. A large 'beach' meant to erode naturally so the sand is deposited on other beaches that would erode otherwise.
Smart
"Using millions of tonnes of sand, engineers create sand motors by extending a section of the shoreline out into the sea, creating an artificial peninsula. The ocean’s wave action acts as a "motor" that pushes the sand along the coastline as time passes. As a result, the beach gradually regenerates and the coast is protected from erosion."
"The anticipated working time of the Sand Motor is at least 20 years, during which it is expected that wind, waves and currents spread the sand along the coast between the Hook of Holland and Scheveningen. However, the complete redistribution of the deposited sand will certainly take more than 20 years, with benefits of the Sand Motor also after the first 20 years. After the first four years from the Sand Motor construction, monitoring results indicated that 95% of the sand volume is still in the deposit area, suggesting that the lifespan of the pilot project could be longer than expected."
0:10 you forgot to mention us building houses on sea fronts, covering up a huge sand reservoir that cycled in and out of the water with storm events.
There's a park in Alabama that uses old Christmas trees to help build dunes. They help catch sand blowing inland and keep it on the beach l, and might also help native grasses take root.
In the Netherlands for decades we have used this "zandmotor" (sand engine) where we dump sand in one particular spot along the coast, near Den Haag (The Hague) and have it resupply the beaches upstream in a less invasive way (I think). Doesn't fix the foreign sand issue, but might make it less stressful for all that lives there.
Seems like we are just making more problems trying to fix beaches "disappearing". Mining tons of sand from the bottom of the ocean (where things live) and dumping it onto a beach (where other things live) in an attempt to resist the rising see seems like seems destructive at worst and futile at best.
100 pictures of Beaches and harbors compared to recent pictures show no evidence of rising sea level. 60s picture of earth compared to Recent pictures of earth shows no evidence of shrinking ice caps
@@RebelRosersthis isn't remotely true
@@RebelRosers You’re stupid lmao
It's how we do things around here, little to no thought is put in the only thing we care about is the "result" but we can't even imagine the impact of things until it's too late. Like you said there are living things where the sand is being taken from and where it is being placed. Seems like a lot of death in both places and the bigger the project the more insane the damage will be to the ecosystem. There has to be a better solution to the problem, I just don't see this practice working out in the long run. There are so many creatures living in the sand that you never see.
Just getting to where he addresses this 4:58
Also replanting native beach plants is important so the sand does not wash away as easily
I remember reading about a community in, I wanna say England, that buries it's Christmas trees on the beach every January, which helps keep the sand in place and fosters the growth of native grasses that further shore up the dunes.
Louisiana has been using a similar technique with the used trees to stop theor coastline from eroding away. Replanting grasses & other coastal plants is good, but I think I literally saw Florida running up a beach with just a single species, planting it out like a rice plantation & said it'd grow in a lot faster & hardier if you used multiple different Native species & didn't line them all up in perfect little rows, like that.
6:06 if the habitat preservation work being done is harming the habitat, you're not preserving the habitat as much as the beachfront property value
As noted, we've been doing nourishment for decades. I've been aware of them doing it in my hometown for 40 years. And they keep doing it. Because they have to. Because the glorified sand bars we build communities on just weren't meant to be static. The beach is constantly changing and we have to compensate to maintain what we've created. For better or worse, whether you like the pros or fear the cons - either way - it will be done. Repeatedly. And some may argue for naught, because the next Cat 4+ will still push a 15' storm surge and wreak havoc on the area anyway.
sandy Barrier Islands like the Outer Banks or Chandelier Islands should’ve been/should be allowed to roll over, but because of private property that’s not possible. Mainland sandy beaches might just be moved inland as during smaller swells sand is deposited allowing for accretion, although during larger swells there is rapid erosion. Again, this will be prevented because of private property, which may mean we lose the whole habitat all together. It’s a choice of private ownership of property or preservation of the beach.
I saw one of these sand moving operations at the beach one year. They were bringing sand from off shore onto the beach. They had this really big tube going into the ocean and a bunch of trucks nearby.
There's also Dams. I'm in AZ and a not-insignificant-portion of our state's non-tax-revenue is selling sand to CA at a massive discount due to the power we get from Boulder ("Hoover") Dam which stops the sand from flowing downstream.
Maybe if the beach nourishment was done similarly to suatainable forestry, it would work and be less destructive to lical ecosystems. What i mean by this is - you start by selecting the sand that is the closest in its ateibutes to hat is/used to be natively in the area. Then, instead of dumping all at once in one thoroughful swipe, the beach in question could be divided into zones, where each zone gets covered in a patchwork fashion with a certain time delay between individual dumps. That way, the area where the sand was dumped could get colonised by critters from the neighbouring area, which would then get some time to settle down and eventually recolonize their previous spot that got covered by the sand later on. Kind of like reseeding the forest with tree at different times, so you end up with trees of different ages with a variety canopy heights. But, you know, a beach. It would be definitely lesa drastic than basically nuking the whole beach at once in a matter of a single month or something
how can we ensure that beach nourishment projects prioritize ecological health and minimize harm to local ecosystems?
Rocky beaches work just as well as sandy beaches. Only problem is that people won't come from 50 miles away to walk or swim off a rocky beach.
I would. Love rocky beaches
🤔I think that it depends on where they are coming from.
Washington state has some nice rocky beaches, with animals that can hang on to rocks.
The beaches with more gravel than sand are better places to find pretty rocks like agates...
I beg to differ. There are lots of places in the world where people come from that far away or farther to go to rocky beaches. For example much of the beaches along the North American west coast are rocky beaches (they only get sandy around 2\3 of the way down California. The other 2/3 of the California coastline and everything north of that is rocky). There are lots and lots of popular beaches that are rocky in that area. They’re all cold and rocky beaches.
Obviously, You have never been to Cutty New Jersey or England. 8/ We have Ft Fischer here in NC.., The only rocky beach within 800 miles.. People love it. 8/
Reid: You are a great presenter. Thanks.
As answer to the question "is this the way to go" the answer is yes, as I am Dutch.
Half my country is below sea level, so the sand banks and beaches are the first line of defence. The second are the dunes. If the sandbanks and beaches get washed away, so will the dunes and the Netherlands would simply flood. It did in 1953, which led to the construction of the Delta Works. A moveable sea barrier, closing off the river delta that is province of Zeeland. In the 1920's, the Zuiderzee was closed off with the Afsluitdijk, turning it into a brackish lake called the IJsselmeer. In the 1970's, an entire province was built in that lake, called Flevoland.
A couple of decades ago, a huge moveable barrier was built to protect Rotterdam harbour, called the Maaskering. It consists of two Eiffel tower sized, curved pontoons, that get floated out in the river, filled up with water and submerged to protect the city and hinterland from flooding. I think it is the largest moveable flood barrier in the world.
The Dutch helped rebuild the sea defences for New Orleans, making them much, much better.
If you wonder what the state of the oceans are, just look at the Netherlands. It is literally life or death here, so we're usually the first to act.
You forgot the zandmolen DeltaDuin, a pilot project for beach nourishing in a natural way, that doesn’t have all the problems mentioned in this video. Apart from getting the sand.
Maar misschien wist je dit nog niet, ik hoorde er pas vorig jaar voor het eerst over. Het is al wel een verplicht onderwerp by aardrijkskunde.
God created the world but the Dutch created the Netherlands.
"God made the world but the Dutch built Holland!"
I llive *on* a nourished beach that's been revamped post-Sandy. It's going well, and attracts a lot more oystercatchers than it used to. Not all bad results, then.
Was going to comment about the irony of sand erosion from hurricane Sandy. Thank you for acknowledging it.
It isn't actually irony though. Irony would be named sth that would be opposite of Sandy. Sandy is just oddly appropriate.
The Dutch have a solution to all the problems you mentioned 10 years ago. The so called Zandmotor, the sand engine.
Always check the Dutch when you do a video about coastal protection and coastal ecosystems. 😀
There are several videos about it on UA-cam, under the title sand motor.
From Wikipedia: sand engine or sand motor (Dutch: zandmotor) is a type of beach nourishment where a large volume of sediment is added to a coast. The natural forces of wind, waves and tides then distribute the sand along the coast over many years, preventing the need for repetitive beach nourishment. The method is expected to be more cost effective and also reduces the repeated ecological disturbances caused by replenishment.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_engine
Sand go bye bye? Me know! Add more sand make sand not go away!
What if you just add the sand really gradually? Like a few buckets a day all year round? Replace it as it's eroding so you never disturb it all at once. And the changes in sand type will be really gradual.
As for getting the sand: Go deep instead of wide. Pick a spot, and just dig deeper in that one place as long as you can. You don't have to get a lot at any one time, but by going back to the same spot each time, you're disturbing a smaller area. It'll fill in a little bit between digs anyway. When it gets too deep to be feasible, you pick spot that's not terribly far away, maybe even just 100 meters. The first spot will start filling in. After a while, you just rotate between two or three spots that'll always just be sand "wells". And get the sand via a pump rather than scraping the ocean or river floor. If you can do it with oil, you can do it with sand.
One approach used here in the Netherlands is what's called a Sand Motor. It's essentially an artificial pier made of sand, that juts out far into the sea. As coastal currents erode the pier, they then deposit the sand onto the beaches at a slow, constant, manageable rate. This simultaneously puts far less stress on the vulnerable ecosystem, and provides species with a more sheltered area to hide from strong currents, big waves or otherwise rough weather. And because it is intentionally built to be impermanent, or at least impermanent enough that the ground is constantly being cycled out as you refill the lost sand, you can't really build any lasting structures on top of it. This means that the Sand Motor itself becomes an excellent space for coastal plants & animals to make their habitats as well, and so they become lovely parks & nature reserves suitable for all sorts of transient fun & appreciation.
I may have a small solution to the problem though it may cost more money in the long run.
Sand sheets dropped by planes(crop dusters). Wind may be an issue so the planes may have to fly closer to the ground than normal. Thin layers of sand dropped by planes over the course of a week or two. This will allow buried clams to move closer to the surface. You would also have to do this on the off season when there are no turtle eggs of course.
The birds may get covered in sand but they can dust it off or could even be temporarily scared off for the plan to work the day of. It would take fewer men, could cover a large area and be less harmful to the environment. The beach just has to close for a day so the sand settles.
Oddly, depending on the beach, the hardest part of that besides economic scale (and weight of the sand cargo) might be flying ultra low to the ground ... that close to major population centers and thus, buildings.
Yeah, Juliana Turchetti died in a crash earlier this month; she was so sweet and will be missed. Flying a Fire Boss would be different, but it seems similar enough that other experienced aviators would eventually die resanding like that. And it would be even worse in heavily populated areas. Fighting massive wildfires is worth the risk, but I'm not sure that is.
@@chompsn9 I am sorry to hear that. My condolences for Juliana's family and friends. I am not a pilot and don't fully know the risks. I am sure there may be beaches this will not work.
I will argue resanding is not as dangerous as fighting a wildfire. What she did was a very dangerous profession and I respect her for it. A beach has no smoke to deal with or fire currents. For descending/ascending they could turn towards the ocean to do so.
Maybe there are other less risky solutions as well. It's important to put one's thoughts out there. Conversations like this may just help find a true solution.
The Dutch are the global experts in sand management and coastal erosion mitigation
I live in Sydney and one night I went to Bondi Beach at about 3am (anxiety things) and saw a large number of huge dump trucks dropping piles of sand onto the shore. I was utterly astounded.
As a Dutch person who grew up knowing several people who work for the government, specifically in the water-related-stuff department, I love this. So much I recognise and even more I didn't even know about
Some island countries in Oceania, I think, bring sand to their coasts because the sea level rising "swallows" them literally.
This is partially true, but in the majority of situations the bigger cause is vegetation loss (especially mangrove trees) and natural shifts in atoll shorelines. Environmentalist are doing the world a disservice by trying to blame everything on climate change.
I remember the most beautiful beach sand in my hometown. It was vast thick laid flat sand with cumulus of finest particles having been formed thousands of thousands years long so we could walk there up to at least a hundred meter from the beach without flailing for swimming. And the sand was soft fine with no hole nor stones small peddles to hurt foot at the bottom.
It was drained on building constructions by heavy machinery and the scale of scooping the sand was enormous enough to make many sink holes on the bottom of the sea bed. When the constructors took away a large proportion of the sand, suddenly the seashore didn't hold its sand anymore. All sands began to be washed away by the waves starting to change the seascape of the beach. It used to be the most beautiful beach, but with the problem of sand washing away, its beautiful renounced beach sand no longer maintained its fame.
So government hastily dropped the sand from somewhere else, but in vain. Once washing away was started, there was no way to stop it. That's how we spoiled the most beautiful seascape as well as the finest golden sea sand beach in my city.
I hate those constructors. And despite pouring down new sands x times of its drained volume, the seashore didn't restore its original shape. It happened during the period of my country's rapid development. Along with the beach, countless ponds and springs, brooks were all gone for good.
😭
Adding sand to the beach - more co2 emissions - more warming - sealevel rising - add more sand - cycle completed :)
: They did that near Southport, NC and nearby beaches in the '80s and '90s, and in most places they did it, the dunes were 30' to 100' back in twenty years (and several hurricanes). My aunt and uncle on Oak Island, NC had their old house about 200' back from the coastal road up to Fort Fisher. By 2005, the coastal road was just under the water at low tide, and the coastal road was moved back to about 100' or so from the house. And the house was eventually condemned because of all the water damage from the big storms. (The house was on a roughly 30' elevation from the coastal road.) -- Mayhaps the beach sand the state used back in the '80s and '90s was the wrong kind of sand.
I wonder if something could be buried beyond the tideline where the sand collects and pump it back up on shore slowly so things aren't impacted as heavily and the coral doesn't get too disturbed... Like a French drain with an auger that builds a small dune back on shore
In the Netherlands they're experimenting with a sand engine. Basically an artificial sand bank just off the coast. Water currents take sand from this to the beaches. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_engine
Excellent presentation, showing the pros and cons.
“Yknow what this place need…needs more sand”
After Hurricane Camille (Category 5 at landfall) hit the Mississippi gulf coast in August 1969, they literally had to replace the beach by dredging sand out of Mississippi Sound. The water was going right up to old Highway 90.
I love this channel. Constantly gives me little factoids to bug family and friends with to remind them about our profound and ubiquitously underestimated pollution and harm to our environment, mother earth
Edit: I say this with hope. Having a channel like this out there giving easy to understand, but accurate and vastly important information is nothing short of a miracle in a world tremored by the ever repressing anxiety of everything thrown at them in mainstream media. You guys and your team are a blessing on this world
Sand? Give it some time. It gets everywhere! Of course, it's also coarse and rough and irritating ...
Question 1: In a hypothetical world where sea levels aren't rising would we have to nourish beaches at all? And if it still needed to occur, how sparingly would it be with an ocean that isn't actively trying to encroach in on us everywhere??
Question 2: What about the really unique beaches, like Hawaii's "Peridot" (technically Olivine), how would you nourish that beach without diluting the essence of what it is??? Theft however little of the sand has already in a way diluted it to be less vibrant anyways, so is there truly anyway to preserve it via replenishment??
haven't beaches been getting washed out since the dawn of time? tropical storms and hurricanes aren't anything new. but they been washing away beaches for a long time.
Yes, but now they’re very important so that the working class has some place to escape, & the trust fund babies have a carefree place to party.
@@sunshine3914 more like working class people have more jobs (at the beach) to care for every want of the trust fund babies (at the beach).
Hey @SciShow Please know your new video set up, location, background, and everything is a very nice, modern change, and it really brings a nice feel to the channel. Unique, homey feeling, very Nice!
so when do we start grinding rocks into sand? or is that no longer plan Z?
At that point just leave the rock
That's already done on an industrial scale for excavation and construction. The problem is transportation, since you can't just do that on site, and both materials are heavy.
I recall watching a video about crushing and grinding glass from refuse into sand, used to restore coastlines etc
Thank you for covering the cons of this so thoroughly
Super useful if the government already dredges the “river” near your beaches for “security purposes.” By river I mean tidal fjord and by security purposes, I mean submarines. Add in all the crushed shells from area seafood places that offer locally farmed clams… seems to have been working for New England. Keep in mind, the dredged sand all comes from the beaches it’s being returned to.
I'd like to see if the study of home destruction by beach nourishment was controlled for the per capita income of the area, I'd expect richer areas to be nourishing their beaches and having more recently built homes.
Me, after the shorelines have been destroyed by rising sea levels: "Oh, what a little beach!"
I could give a quick, flippant answer, but that is because I live in Minnesota. I'm sure these will affect my friends in California and especially Florida far more significantly.
This is like picking the lesser of two evils. Death or destruction? Pick one lol
kinda wish you mentioned desert sand, i imagine its partly the whole different sizes thing and i know you cant use it to make glass cuz its a different composition or something but felt worth mentioning
Not to mention sand is becoming a scarce resource as it's quickly being used up in the manufacturing of concrete around the would to build cities and roads. We may need to find an alternative. I do wonder what useful properties lunar dust might have once we start mining it.
I think that this question of whether or not to nourish beaches is complex. Many of the beaches that have nourishment projects are in areas that have been experiencing net erosion for a long time and will into the far future. This is compounded by the effects of climate change, where sea-level rise and increasing storm frequency and serverity in turn increase the occurance of highly erosive events and their severity. If there is a commitment to beach nourishment in these areas, even if dune vegetation or other measures to retain this sediment and trap additional sediments traveling in from other areas were put in place, the combination of a naturally erosive shoreline and climate change would mean regular beach nourishment projects to maintain these beaches. Many studies look at the short-term effects of nourishment on animals and vegetation, but we really lack long-term studies of these impacts. Changes in sediment grain sizes and sorting (the size and organization of sand grains), nutrient content of sediments, introduction of other organisms, removal of habitat from other areas, etc. all result from bring in sediment from different locations and may have long-lasting impacts.
Simultaneously, climate change and human infrastructure limit the capacity of these habitats to recover naturally. Many threatened and endangered species will likely never recover without human intervention because we've changed these habitats and the environment so much. Humans have modified many environments to the point where human interventions are now necessary to try and preserve these ecosystems and species.
Ideally, living vegetation via dune plantings, natural sediment influx from up-stream/up-current areas and sand bars, etc. would suffice for restoring and maintaining habitat. Dune vegetation has an incredible capacity to help build and maintain dune systems and beaches, but still need adequate sediment supply and many years (even decades) for vegetation to facilitate full dune and beach recovery following a big storm. With increasing storm frequency and severity plus sea-level rise, these ecosystems may no longer have that kind of time to recover on their own.
These habitats have responded in different ways over thousands and millions of years. With barrier island systems, for example, many will "roll over" and migrate landward during times of higher sea-level, but now are artifically stabilized. What that means is, instead of sediment moving over dunes and being dumped on the far side--facilitating island movement land-ward--the sediment now gets washed away.
The problem we now face is that we live in an era of global change that is so rapid many species and ecosystems simply cannot respond fast enough. Further, there are many pressures happening simultaenously--for example, beach driving, excess nutrients, pollutants, warming temperatures, ever increasing human infrastructure, changing water availability, and more--are all happening at the same time.
So, I think yes we need to consider nourishment as one possible tool for protecting these areas, but we also need careful consideration about how to implement these projects. SHOULD the multi-million dollar project be used to add sand to a popular beach that we know will disappear in the next 5 years? Are there places where these projects might be more successful in the long term? Can we assess sites for their potential to contribute to the conservation of key species, coastal protection, AND recreation? Can we plan these projects for the long term to create fully functioning ecosystems that will last generations and allow us to experience these beautiful places? If so, then I think we could do great work for both humans and the natural environment, and preserve these special ecosystems far into the future.
That coarse sand is necessary for concrete aggregate. Construction uses massive amounts of it every year.
They should source it from The Sahara. There's a lot, and should keep digging until you hit rock to see what's under the desert.
Also, unlike river sand, desert sand isn't useful to make concrete. The rounder grains make it almost identical to regular beach sand.
It sands like it's a wash.
We should let nature take its course like it did before people existed
People are nature. Nature is taking its course.
@@Baldorcete But we don't call it "natural causes" when one person kills another. It's almost like we know there is a differ nice between human activity and other natural things and processes.
Tell that to the people of Kiribati. Your commute to work is literally removing their nation from the planet.
@@herranton Who said nature cares about Kiribati, or any other place?
@@Baldorcete nobody, but who says we shouldn't?
Thanks for the video!
I remember sitting on a beautiful beach in Bali, scrambled my fingers through the sand and 6 inches down concrete 😁
i saw the title and thought the video would be about how humans are consuming huge amounts of sand for the production of concrete. the demand is so great that there are sand poachers, often connected with organised crime.
Bring back dunes on the side of the beach away from the water. The sand will slowly travel towards the water at a less drastic speed, giving time for plants and animals to acclimate.
It also acts as a wind break and is great for beach grasses to grow on
Meanwhile in Brittany (France) farmers take away sand in dump trucks to put it in their fields, hell yeaaaah
I never knew this was a thing! This was a very education video! ☺
There's somewhere the Gobi desert is encroaching on grasslands, it would be great if that sand was useful for replenishing beaches.
Hi Reid!
I live on the beach.. like right on the beach in Bush Point Whidbey Island.. and the tide stops in the exact same place it did when I grew up here in this house I inherited.. 60+ years.. so I assume this "rising tide" will happen sometime soon?
Anakin Skywalker is watching this video and screaming.
To be honest this is the first time I see beach rebuilding considered as a technique to preserve a natural environment. I just knew it as a way to restore beaches in places with poor urban planning, where buildings are built too close to the ocean. I’ll keep my mind open but it’s a bit hard to see it as a preservation effort
Two thoughts:
First, it seems to me there must be more gradual ways to add sand to beaches than just dumping it all. I mean, I'm sure others have thought about this, but still. What if you piled up the sand a ways uphill from the beach, in a less threatened ecosystem, and let rain and occasional human intervention wash it down to the beach itself? I mean, beaches have existed for billions of years. They must be getting refilled naturally. If we just add to that process, it should be a bit less destructive, right? Like I said, I'm sure there are experts working on this problem, and I hope they're at least as smart as me😅.
Second, it bothers me that we have to take sand from elsewhere to do this. It's not as if sand just *exists,* and is never created or destroyed. We know the recipe. Rocks. We know how to force-erode rocks down to whatever size particles we want. Rock tumblers are literally children's toys. Sort out the particles by size. Send the particles so small they're clay off to potters and brick makers. Send the bits in between clay and sand, called silt, to get mixed with compost and restore eroded farmlands and other silt. And send the sand to beaches, glassblowers, and so on. The shape and color of the sand will be determined partly by the starting rock, and partly by the milling process, so you can choose the right rocks and process to get the type of sand you want - the same as what is already there, except a bit rougher, so it can get worn down over time, like breaking in shoes.
You missed a major problem, concrete requires sand and beaches in places like Morocco are disappearing via the bulldozer.
So what about desert sand? Seems easier to acquire than ocean floor sand, also would re-sanding be easier on the local ecosystem if it was done in stages rather than the whole beach at once?
Sounds to me like beach nourishment wouldn't ne that bad if we just did it alower and smaller. Take less sand from the bottom of the ocean.
Ads it in small segmenta (Maybelline 20m of beach nourished and 80m left as it was... It would take 5.yeara but hopefully more animals would survive it since only part of their habitat was changed and the ones that can move would move over to the old habitat until the new one became livable for them.
Funny, there were man-made lines of rocks and concrete leading down into the sea in sections about 1500 yards apart on some of the seaside resorts in my country, they had been there for about 70 years, but they removed them for some reason about 6 years ago, all the sand on those beaches is nearly gone now, washed away, the beaches have turned stoney and unpleasant to walk on with no footwear, the rocks and concrete was put there to stop that, its a real shame it was taken away,
If this video never mentions groynes imma riot
Why I NEED more sand, give me your sand
If there were healthy oyster beds jut off the beach, they would help protect the beach by reducing the wave energy that hits the beach.
grinding recycled glass into sand has promise; it comes in different colors, can be made into different size particles, doesn’t degrade into toxic components, and doesn’t take sand from existing ecosystems. there is no perfect solution, but we have a responsibility to our ecosystems to invest our whole selves into these problems.
No matter what we do will have a negative impact on something in most cases we won't even know what until much later and by then it's too late.
An unrelated issue happening where I live is the loss of certain spider species in forests, they used to be *very* common and now they can barely find them at all and like many things they have no idea why this is happening. All this data was collecting for 100+ years so it's not a temporary fluke. What's scary is that when we're doing certain things and it happens at the very low levels of the food chain and slowly climbs up and once it affects us it could have been going on for a long time.
I hope they find a better more sustainable alternative to "nourish" the beaches because I do not see how it has any beneficial impact on the ecosystem at all. I feel like it's more like we don't see or care about the negative effects so far.
Drink every time he says sand.
Much like preventing forest fires, we are only delaying and compounding the problem.
it is. at least this way we group all tourists in one place and save the truly unspoiled ones
One big fear i have with microplastic/nanoplastics is it may shorten all lifespans of living, blooded, creatures and thus eventually destroy and halt evolution in its tracks, or become a great obstacle for whatever intelligences may or may not develop after us
Edit: I say this because of the studies with consumption of microplastics being linked to inflammation and heart problems in humans.
Also adding to that, what I mean with the last sentence in the original unedited comment is that we may have destroyed earth itself by infecting living beings with the hair like, penetrating reach of micro and nano plastics until no living beings can live long enough or retain their intelligence and instincts enough to support their next of kin and evolve so forth
I hates when sand gets in me swimming cossie.
We’ve been going to the outer banks for 25 years now, so beach nourishment is nothing new to us lol
They created gianourmous sand dunes in New Zealand by burying used christmas trees under sand on the shore. Its a successful preservation model we should employ here in the states. Think about the future National Seashores!
Or you can create barriers with large rocks and then the sand will slowly drift to you. Which has absolutely no downsides for you or the beach your sand ends up getting stolen from. /s
♫ what's with beaches? get more sand. ♫
What if we took the sand, and PUT IT OVER HERE?
Hurricane Sandy has a last name, you know... It's Rosian.
Chest hair sciencey guy is back!
I’ve never been this early to scishow before
2:32 there is no irony in the name though. Irony would be if it were called sth like Muddy or Solid.
I'm with Anakin Skywalker on how I feel about sand.
Maybe beach erosion wouldnt be such a problem in the first place if we could just leave native mangrove forest and dunes grasses in place. Just about every single foot of beach has to get torn up to put up tacky, overpriced buildings.
What about simply planting mangroves?
Then there’s no beach to use, so no growing economy, and Mangroves can’t just grow anywhere either
Yes, simply.
@@Andrewdeank In other words, there's no money in mangroves. So forget that idea.
Well the people who have the money to use to make that plan happen (the local government), also want to make their money go back into the local economy
@@TRUMP-o6yYes, thanks for keeping up with the rest of us. A strong economy is super necessary, kiddo
Imma give that beach some sand. Beaches love sand.
Anakin skywalker punching the air rn
We could just not dump it all at once, and move to crushing rocks to match the sand on existing beaches rather than a one size fits all approach.
slow birth rate way down is the first step imo
My sandpit’s full of cat poo so I don’t think you’ll be wanting that sand!
Beach nourishment sounds like the wrong name if it’s killing everything in the sand…