Climate change is a complex and diverse problem; a global issue that affects all nations but impacts them in different ways. Though no nation is immune from the effects altogether, coastal and island nations face the direct danger of rising sea levels on their shores. For nations of the Caribbean, where so much of the region’s tourism market relies on the shoreline as a base for beachfront hotels and resorts, rising sea level represents an immediate environmental and economic threat. Many offer seawalls as a solution. It’s an option that has been utilised successfully before but it’s not always a surefire fix. So where around the world have seawalls proved to be a solution? And what is required to ensure their successful installation? Let’s look now in-depth.
The Tide is Turning
Beachfront erosion can occur for a number of reasons. While rising sea levels as a result of climate change can be viewed as the major cause, other secondary factors play a role. For the Caribbean in particular, the impact of climate change in complement to the erosion that can be caused by storms and extreme weather like hurricanes adds an extra challenge when seeking local solutions to this problem.
Many beaches are eroded by a couple of inches per year. While not ideal, dredging can delay the impact of the erosion. But, when rising sea levels are combined with extreme weather, it represents ‘the perfect storm’ whereby erosion of a coastline is escalated.
Ultimately, erosion of a shoreline is usually a continuous and irreversible problem unless major action is taken. Anyone who maintains that erosion can be cyclical (and that the tide may take out sand one year, only to return it the next) would run against scientific opinion. With the scope and difficulty of such problems now clear, what solutions can be pursued?
Who Pays for It?
Miami, Florida is one of the world’s most prominent epicentres in the battle against climate change. Not only is the city encircled by water, but it’s an iconic holiday spot within the world’s largest economy, ensuring that the impact of climate change there receives huge public attention in a way that can be elusive elsewhere. It is also among the world’s most vulnerable cities to rising sea levels, which have risen an average of eight inches globally since 1880.
In fact, Miami has also been cited by the National Wildlife Federation as the city with the most to lose through the effects of climate change, even when considered alongside other economic powerhouses like New York and Guangzhou, China. It also has form in utilising seawalls, all the way back in 1980 spending US$ 65mn on the reallocation of sand to ten miles of the city’s shoreline along the South Beach neighbourhood.
Today there are over 63 miles of seawalls in the famous Miami Beach area, yet notably only three miles are publicly owned. For affluent Miamians with waterfront property, the price of a raised seawall is a small one to pay considering the alternative of flooding. When it comes to public works, recent years have seen Miami set aside US$ 400mn for spending by 2025 on capital works that elevate roads, and provide new drainage channels for sewer and water systems.
This does not rule out the potential for the construction of more seawalls in future by public authorities, and undoubtedly Miami as a whole has the advantage of proactive private citizens, but it does show for those who currently own or operate beachfront property that the priorities of a public authority are more likely to reside with effective management of rising sea levels over attempts at holding it back.
Tomorrow’s Problems, Today’s Options
For any developers planning new sites, and current accommodation providers looking to expand, there’s a bitter and hard reality to confront here. Seawalls can serve as solutions but are rarely permanent or foolproof. Even for beaches where a seawall provides an effective barrier in the long term, it can easily become a case of a problem moved instead of fixed, as a barrier erected on one part of the beach causes a change in the wave flow and break. This can result in a seawall guarding against further erosion on one part of the beach, but seeing the tidal energy displaced further along the coast, and an even more destructive wave emerge to cause more erosion elsewhere. This is not only an issue for city planners to consider, but potentially one fraught with legal risk.
If one beachfront hotelier were to erect a wall that stops minor erosion on their beachfront, and that thereafter sees a hotel further along the beach suffer massive erosion as a result, the latter could have a claim for pure economic loss alongside a slew of other potential claims if it could be shown that the loss of their beachfront delivers a decline in patronage to their hotel. This scenario further illustrates that quick fixes, like one small wall for a single hotelier over a longer one shared by many, are best avoided, even if they involve less cost, planning and red tape.
Standing On The Shore
As well as the option of seawalls when they are utilised effectively, there are alternatives out there. Alongside the construction of groynes, jetties, and other in-water structures that can help guard against erosion, the path of least resistance advocated by some environmentalists sees the use of construction setbacks, and the creation of an aquatic buffer zone between a hotel and the shore. The use of water trees and other plants in this zone can provide a natural wall while causing minimal environmental disruption.
More widely, there needs to be greater pursuit of crimes like theft of sand. In 2008, in St Patrick, Grenada, a seawall had to be built, not principally due to climate change, but to thieves stealing sand for use in local construction projects. Stronger policing won’t solve all problems but it could help save individual beaches.
There are also options for hotels looking to expand while anxious about the erosion of their shoreline. The development of accommodation like over-water hotels, with a generous height clearance from the water, should not be seen as an admission of defeat but, instead, a recognition that, in spite of global consensus and pursuit of strong climate change action, it will take many years to halt the detrimental effect of climate change, much less reverse it.
