ABSTRACT
Karaliūnas, V.; Jarmalavičius, D.; Pupienis, D.; Janušaitė, R.; Žilinskas, G., and Karlonienė, D., 2020. Shore nourishment impact on coastal landscape transformation: An example of the Lithuanian Baltic Sea coast. In: Malvárez, G. and Navas, F. (eds.), Global Coastal Issues of 2020. Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 95, pp. 840–844. Coconut Creek (Florida), ISSN 0749-0208.
Shore nourishment as a coastal management measure for coast stabilization has been used worldwide since the middle of the twentieth century. However, changes in the sand volume and grain size have had an effect on changes in the coastal landscape. The aim of this work is to assess how different conditions during shore nourishment transform the coastal landscape. Investigations were performed at two sites. The first site is located in the Giruliai recreational zone, where minded sand unloaded at a depth of 4-6 m on the nearshore for beach regeneration since 2002. The second site is located in the Palanga recreational zone, where since 2006 along an approximately 1.5 km-long segment of the shore, sand has been discharged directly onto the beach. The sand needed for this operation was obtained by offshore dredging in a predefined zone at a depth of about 52 m. The measurements have been carried out periodically up to the present day by levelling cross-shore profiles before and after nourishment. The variations in sand volume and grain size, as well as the beach and foredune morphology parameters were calculated from the obtained data. It was discovered that the maximum coastal protection effect was achieved in Palanga, where the sand was discharged directly onto the beach. However, by supplying sand that is coarser than the native sand, the coastal landscape underwent greater transformations. At the Giruliai site, other processes were also observed. Only a small part of the unloaded sand reached the coast, thus causing marginal accretion. Also, due to the fact that only sand with a grain size similar to the native sand reached the coastline, the coastal landscape did not undergo any significant changes.
