Joseph snorts, looking at her Platja d’Aro. “When I was a child I used to come here and play, bathe… The beach then was twice as big,” recalls the 48-year-old teacher.

Although there are no official figures, everyone in the seaside resort of Costa Brava in Catalonia agrees that the beach has been getting smaller and smaller for decades.

And this is not something that only happens in Playa d’Aro. The phenomenon of the “death of the beaches” is also observed elsewhere. According to experts, this is due to the fact that the coasts are built right up to the beach: on an unbuilt coastline, the beach gradually moves inland – but this is impossible when there are buildings next to the sea.

“Beaches that remain untouched can adapt very easily to climate change, since they are able to… retract and rise when the sea level rises,” explains Francesca Ribas from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in Barcelona. But when the beach can’t be moved because it has tons of cement on it, then it just disappears.

Beach dunes are turning into beach walkways – and this is a big problem according to the expert, because this limits the ability of the beaches to adapt to changing conditions, which, among other things, increases the risk of flooding.

The future looks ominous

The same happens on beaches in other countries, such as in the USA, Turkey, Brazil or Australia. And the problem is of course compounded by climate change – according to a study in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change “by the end of the century, 50% of the world’s sandy beaches may have disappeared”.

As Ribas emphasizes, based on satellite images, international studies have shown that between 1984 and 2015, 25% of beaches worldwide were affected by erosion. The Cartographic and Geological Institute of Catalonia (ICGC) has also found that between 1956 and 2019, 65% of Catalonia’s beaches (ie 319 out of 489 beaches) have shrunk.

The drama of Catalonia’s beaches

“One of the most typical cases is Mongat, whose beach has lost 90% of its sand,” points out Greenpeace. After a major storm in the spring the situation was so bad that the Catalan city even considered canceling the summer season. “We no longer had space even for the lifeguard’s chair,” Tania Gonzalez, municipal councilor for the environment, recently told the newspaper El Periódico.

Today the beach is a strip two meters wide – although ten years ago it was still 50 meters wide. “We were forced to close all the beach bars,” says mayor Andreu Absil.

The effects of the ‘death of the beaches’

Coastal erosion has alarming effects. As in the rest of Spain, in Catalonia tourism is one of the most important sources of income – and the tourism industry is largely dependent on the beaches. At the same time, a “precious ecosystem” is also at risk, Ribas underlines, adding that “beaches are also the best protectors from storms”. If a city’s beach simply ceases to exist, “then storms will have far more devastating consequences.”

Many Spaniards refuse to watch their beaches die idly. Thus, they mobilize and organize information and protest actions in order to raise awareness among their fellow citizens – in August, for example, the SOS Costa Brava organization put on a show in an open-air theater near Platja d’Aro on the ecological impact of uncontrolled building construction. In many areas of Spain the relevant regulatory framework is being tightened – although sometimes construction continues unabated, even illegally.

Paul Bosch, vice president of SOS Costa Brava, emphasizes in an interview with the German News Agency that the continuous struggle has already borne fruit. “Thanks to our efforts, an urban plan was approved for Catalonia, which protects various natural areas that were going to be destroyed.” At the same time, however, the construction of a total of 40,000 new apartments and hotel facilities in 22 municipalities of the Costa Brava is planned, “which will have very negative consequences for the coastline and the sea”.

The Ministry of the Environment of the left-wing government in Madrid, which is responsible for coastal protection, is responsible for the implementation of dozens of projects with a total investment of 250 million euros. For fear of losing part of the public revenue, however, the regional authorities often either prevent or delay the implementation of the projects.

What solutions are there? So far authorities have tried to bring sand from the Sahara and dump it on some shores – a solution that seems both costly and unsustainable. The construction of protective structures, such as breakwaters, on the other hand, only helps in the short term.

Is it time for some unpopular measures?

Ribas sees only one way out: “We have to return to the sea what we took from it.” The magic word: “Renaturierung”, i.e. “natural restoration”, a term that refers to the return of things to their natural state. “We need to rebuild the dunes that were originally there and as long as we need to tear up the coastal walkways and put them further away from the beach – as unpopular as these measures are,” says the expert. This is already being tested by two Catalan municipalities, Vilaseca and Calafell.

Edited by: Giorgos Passas