State-of-the-art Beach Nourishment Projects along the Brazilian Coast

Pereira, P.S.; Tebechrani, L.F., and Klein, A.H.F., 2024. State-of-the-art of beach nourishment projects along the Brazilian coast. In: Phillips, M.R.; Al-Naemi, S., and Duarte, C.M. (eds.), Coastlines under Global Change: Proceedings from the International Coastal Symposium (ICS) 2024 (Doha, Qatar). Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 113, pp. 1087-1092. Charlotte (North Carolina), ISSN 0749-0208. Beach nourishment has been used worldwide as a strategy not only to protect coasts that are under erosion but also to regenerate the beach ecosystem, creating space for leisure activities and city infrastructure. The goal of this study is to present a review of current state-of-the-art nourishment projects along the Brazilian coast. To achieve this goal, a bibliographic review was conducted by searching for nourishment projects with volumes higher than 250 thousand cubic meters of nourished sand. After mapping the nourishment projects, the coastline was mapped using the Coastal Analyst System from Space Imagery Engine - Cassie. The data were then filtered and plotted into Hovmöller diagrams to understand their temporal and spatial behavior. In total, 12 nourishment projects were listed from the south to northeast of Brazil. In all cases, the sediment was added directly to the backshore. Some projects were constructed along with hard engineering structures, such as terminal groins and breakwaters. At least two of the studied beaches do not require renourishment, while some others already need to be renourished. From the analyzed data, it was possible to observe that most of the nourished beaches experienced chronic erosion before being nourished, with some being nourished after erosional episodes. In addition, the Hovmöller diagrams show interesting processes such as alongshore fill migration, beach rotation, interannual and interdecadal shoreline variability, and the effects of hard engineering structures. Despite being a well-explored and implemented method in different countries as a feasible solution for coastal protection, beach nourishment still has a lot of room to grow in Brazil. The recent increase in the use of this alternative for coastal protection is more efficient than several hard solutions that have been deployed along the Brazilian coast in the past. The results show that even though beach nourishment has become a good alternative for coastal protection, decision-makers must recognize renourishment as a crucial part of project success.