Thailand's beaches losing sand

Erosion threatens beaches Thailand may lose all its attractive beaches in 10 years unless drastic measures are introduced to solve chronic erosion, Deputy Transport Minister Ormsin Chivapruck says.

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Erosion threatens beaches

Amornrat Mahitthirook

Thailand may lose all its attractive beaches in 10 years unless drastic measures are introduced to solve chronic erosion, Deputy Transport Minister Ormsin Chivapruck says.

The ministry, which oversees the Marine Department, will adopt measures being used to preserve a critically eroded beach in Pattaya as a model to save other endangered beaches in the country, he said.

Parts of Pattaya beach in Chon Buri, which is often crowded with tourists, are being filled in with more than 300,000 cubic metres of sand after suffering erosion over many years.

Some sections of the beach are currently only two or three metres wide, compared with 35 metres previously, Mr Ormsin said.

"If we don't do anything, there will be no attractive beaches left," he said.

According to Marine Department director-general Sorasak Saensombat, Thailand has 23 coastal provinces with a coastline stretching 2,000 kilometres on the Gulf of Thailand and 1,000km along the Andaman Sea.

Of this total, some 670km of shoreline is suffering from severe erosion with land being lost to the sea at a rate of more than five metres a year.

The ministry is also restoring Chalatat beach in Songkhla's Muang district which is seriously eroded.

The ministry has set aside more than 300 million baht to combat erosion along a more than two-kilometre stretch of beach, Mr Ormsin said. The work is expected to finish in 2018.

For Pattaya, authorities have hired Marine Construction Joint Venture at a cost of 429 million baht to lay sand along a 2.8-km stretch of beach running from North to South Pattaya. This beach restoration project is scheduled to finish next year, Mr Ormsin said.

Unlike seawalls built into the sea to protect coastlines from strong waves, replacing sand is more attractive and appeals more to tourists since the sand used is carefully selected to match sand already on the beach, said Suphot Charulakkhana, of Chulalongkorn University's Aquatic Resources Research Institute, which was hired to solve the erosion problem in Pattaya.

Up to 300,000 cubic metres of sand is being taken by boat to Pattaya where it will be poured into the sea to let the water wash it ashore, he said.

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