Once just a minor nuissance, years of beach erosion had begun to seriously threaten nearby buildings and businesses. Simple re-sanding operations had already failed in earlier efforts.
A new strategy of rehabilatation for the beach was begun with a first step of recapturing sand currently drifting out to sea on the bottom of the bay and using a boat to pump it back to the beach. Normally, the eco-system is a cycle of sand shifting back-and-forth with the wind & waves between sea and beach in a natural balance.
Unfortunately, loss of seagrass combined with a dying barrier reef strained the eco-system and led to the drastic erosion. In addition to the sand excavation efforts, steps to re-grow the coral of the barrier reef and restore seagrass are underway. Collectively, the timely intervention of these actions rebalance a natural cycle that had simply fallen out of sync.
Project Specifications
● Construction Manager : Xavier David
● Contractor : Dragage Caraïbes
● Photographer : Xavier David
● Project Location : Saint-Jean, Saint-Barthélemy
● Project Size : 50,000 cubic meters (1,765,000 cubic feet) of sand pumped
● Project Year : 2011
