ABSTRACT
Rates of coastal erosion vary enormously in Europe and consequently protection measures associated with high and low erosion rates vary as well. Erosion is currently affecting many EU member states with coastlines retreating on average between 0.5 and 2 m/yr and by 15 m/yr in a few extreme cases, with large extents of stable coastlines, such as northern Spain being rare. Many protection strategies on socioeconomic grounds that hard engineering protection will always be necessary, as stakeholders would be unwilling to allow areas of high-value real estate to be abandoned to the sea unless cost benefit analysis and more importantly, political will, prove otherwise. In essence, development and urbanization at the coast has immobilized shorelines and reduced sediment input to beaches, requiring implementation of technical engineering solutions to maintain the increased demand for recreational areas by the sea, under the sun, and on the sand.
