Case Study: Beach nourishments along the Belgian coastline

In June 2011, the Flemish government agreed to the 'Masterplan Kustveiligheid', a commitment to a number of measurements to protect the Belgian shoreline against a millenary storm surge. The plan was already implemented by Afdeling Kust during the same year. In order to always select the appropriate measurement for a certain location, the principle "soft where possible, hard where necessary" was used. By using beach nourishments, the aim was to retain both a safe as a natural and pleasant coastline. 

The nourishments are focussing on several risk zones along the coastline. These zones are listed in the table below, together with detail on the ongoing nourishments within each zone. While some nourishments are done for yearly maintenance of the sandy beaches, others are needed to repair damage done to the beaches by large storm surges. The table is based on the following webpage of Afdeling Kust.

Besides the nourishments mentioned above, several smaller operations took place during the same period on other locations, to ensure that the whole coastline stays resilient against the rising sea level. A large overview of all nourishment operations along the Belgian coast is available within the following publication of the Compendium Coast and Sea 2018.

Lastly, Afdeling Kust is currently testing out a new type of nourishment in the surf zone, which was commenced in front of Nieuwpoort in 2017. 

The yearly nourishments are visualized on the static map next to this article. It can be viewed and downloaded as pdf using following link.