| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1724353 | Ocean & Coastal Management | 2011 | 12 Pages |
The applicability of recommendations of the Eurosion project to define a policy to manage coastal erosion has been tested at the “beach” scale in the Mediterranean coast. Thus, a favourable sediment status has been defined for these beaches taking into account their main functions: recreation and protection. Because they act at two different seasons, this status needs to be seasonally defined. For the protection function, the favourable sediment status depends on the level of safety fixed by the manager taking into account the importance of existing infrastructures and, for recreation it depends on the use density of the beach. The concept has been formalized for beach management within a framework where benchmarking plays a crucial role to determine the need of intervention. This has been illustrated for open cell beaches where one of its boundaries can permit variations in the sediment budget and for pocket beaches that act as closed sediment cells.
► Favourable sediment status defined for protection and recreation function in beaches. ► Favourable status for protection depends on the safety level required by the manager. ► Favourable status for recreation depends on the density of users at the beach. ► Benchmarking process is proposed and tested for open and bay beaches.
