Long-term defense endeavors against erosion on a muddy deltaic coast: Lessons and implications

Abstract

Shoreline erosion has been a pernicious problem facing many countries around the world. It causes the degradation and vulnerability of coastal eco-environments, and imposes considerable pressures upon coastal economic, social developments in the context of climate change and sea-level rising. The muddy coast of the abandoned Yellow River delta at Binhai, Jiangsu Province, China has experienced chronic erosion since 1855 when the Yellow River avulsed to north China. A variety of hard structures, that is, seawall, groin, jetty, breakwater, and so forth were emplaced and reinforced to withstand the shoreline retreat and concomitant beach loss. These engineering solutions have been proved unsuccessful or ineffective in their objectives. An overview is presented on the multi-decadal defense endeavors with technical lessons and management implications learnt. A SHIAA (site-specific, holistic, integrative, adaptive, affordable) tenet is put forward to achieve the sustainability in a coastal erosion mitigation scheme. The merit and limitation of nature-based solutions (NBS) applied in coastal protection is further discussed.

Keywords

beach retention / deltaic coast / erosion mitigation / nature-based solution / sustainability

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