Tourism in Tunisia | Beaches threatened by accelerated coastal erosion

(Hammamet) Excavators flatten mounds of white sand to restore a disappearing beach in Hammamet, one of Tunisia’s top tourist destinations, where coastal erosion is accelerating under the impact of uncontrolled urbanization and climate change.

Before the peak of the summer season, the sand replenishment operation on the beach in the city centre of this seaside resort, 60 km from Tunis, is being carried out under the supervision of the Coastal Protection and Development Agency (APAL), a public body.

All month of June, 15,000 m³ of sand – 750 trucks – from quarries in the semi-desert region of Kairouan, more than 100 km away, were dumped on this site, emblematic of a tourist model based on seaside resorts on the edge of the Mediterranean.

In good years, tourism accounts for up to 14% of GDP, providing tens of thousands of jobs in a country where unemployment is over 16% and close to 40% among young people. By 2024, the authorities are aiming for 10 million visitors.

“This beach is the postcard of Hammamet, engraved in our minds since our childhood,” Chiheb Ben Fredj, secretary general of the Association for Environmental Education (AERE), explained to AFP.

“Not a sustainable solution”

But over the last decade, in Hammamet, one of the most affected sites in Tunisia, “coastal erosion has contributed to the loss of 24,000 m² of beach, with the disappearance of 3 to 8 meters of beach per year between 2006 and 2019,” according to a World Bank report in 2020.

According to the AERE, this “spectacular” erasure of the coastline has reached a new level of “destruction” in the last two years.

The entire Tunisian coastline is under threat, with an average loss of 1.5 m of coastline per year, which has already swallowed up 90 km of beach, while an additional 190 km are at risk on the 570 km of sandy coastline.

In the face of erosion, silting up beaches can be useful from an aesthetic and economic point of view, but “it is not a sustainable solution,” says Mr. Ben Fredj. Other developments are necessary, such as dikes or structures to fix the sand.

According to the AERE, the installation of several kilometers of palisades to retain the sand has allowed the reconstitution and stabilization of dunes on many beaches in the country.

Otherwise, “the sand can be swallowed up in a few days (by the sea) or by a storm,” underlines Mr. Ben Fredj, as was the case in the summer of 2023, during the first sand reloading operation in Hammamet, of a much smaller size.

These interventions also have a high cost: 3.9 million dinars (around one million euros) this year for the re-sanding of three beaches, in Hammamet, Monastir and Sfax, according to APAL.

“The showcase of Hammamet”

The central beach “is the showcase of Hammamet. For us, the priority is to recover the beach, not to touch the beauty of the city,” argues Narjess Bouasker, director of the Menara hotel, one of the leaders of the Regional Hotel Federation.

Relieved to see some action taking place after sounding the alarm, M^me Bouasker admits that silting is only a “temporary solution” because “we don’t know how the sea will react.” Ideally, she says, a balance should be found between preserving the landscape and effectively combating coastal erosion.

For both AERE and APAL, the primary cause of erosion is human activity, with uncontrolled urbanisation, aggravated by global warming which causes more violent storms and a rise in sea levels, particularly rapid in the Mediterranean.

On the beach in the centre of Hammamet, construction has led to the disappearance of the border dunes, which played a central role in the natural replenishment of sand.

APAL also deplores coastal development that is disrespectful of ecosystems, particularly with the covering of the beds of “oueds”, rivers that carry 85% of the sediment reaching the seaside, helping to reduce erosion.

“The constructions were not designed to respect coastal dynamics,” emphasizes an APAL official who wished to remain anonymous.

The most affected beaches are, according to the AERE, those located in urban areas such as Hammamet, or Monastir and Sousse, other seaside resorts.