HAMAMETH, Tunisia: In the Tunisian seaside town of Hammamet, bulldozers carefully shovel sand from the nearby desert onto a popular beach in an attempt to stop it from disappearing due to erosion.
“This beach is a postcard image of Hammamet,” said environmentalist Chiheb Ben Frege, gazing nostalgically at the city's famous Yasmin Beach.
“It has been in our minds since childhood,” he added, as workers worked to restore Tunisia's central promenade to its former sandy glory.
As with many other coastal areas in North Africa, heavy erosion has caused many of Hammamet's sandy beaches to disappear in recent years, damaging the holiday hotspot about 65 kilometers (40 miles) east of the capital, Tunis.
Coastlines around the world are in constant natural flux, and the sea picks up and deposits sediment.
But human activities, including coastal development and offshore sand mining, significantly accelerate beach erosion.
Among other impacts, construction and coastal defenses in the same area can stop the movement of sediment along the shoreline, depriving existing beaches of new material.
Research has also shown that the effects of climate change, including rising temperatures and sea levels, are exacerbating the phenomenon.
In the Mediterranean, where Britain's National Oceanographic Center says sea levels have risen at a faster rate in the past 20 years than in the entire 20th century, coastlines are changing rapidly.
According to the United Nations, the sea is also warming 20 percent faster than the rest of the world.
Tunisia's coastline has been a major asset for the struggling Mediterranean nation as it plans to welcome around 10 million tourists this year.
Tourism accounts for up to 14 percent of the country's GDP, providing tens of thousands of jobs in a country where unemployment is over 16 percent and 40 percent among youth.
According to official data from last year, Tunisia has already lost more than 90 kilometers of beaches due to erosion.
According to reports from Tunisia, of the country's 570 kilometers of sandy beaches suitable for swimming, 190 kilometers are in danger of disappearing.
Most of the beaches most affected by erosion are located near cities.
Tunisian environmental groups, as well as the government's Coastal Protection and Development Agency (APAL), blame the rapid erosion mainly on human activity and construction on the coast, which they say is exacerbated by climate change.
“The construction projects were not designed with the dynamics of the coast in mind,” an APAL spokesman told AFP.
To save Hammamet beach, one of the worst-hit in Tunisia, according to the World Bank, authorities last month began transporting about 750 trucks filled with sand from the interior desert province of Kairouan, about 110 kilometers away.
APAL, which works under the Ministry of Environment, was racing against time to fill the beach before the peak tourist season.
But while beach restoration, known as beach nourishment, may be a quick fix, “it's not a sustainable solution,” Ben Frege said.
“This sand may not last long,” added the general secretary of the Environmental Education Association.
“It can be swallowed in a few days in a storm,” he said, as it was in the summer of 2023.
The process can also be expensive.
Coastal authorities estimated the cost of restoring the sand on three beaches in Hammamet, Monastir and Sfax at 3.9 million Tunisian dinars ($1.25 million).
But for local residents, restoring their priceless waterfront costs money.
Yasmin Beach “is the showcase of Hammamet,” said Narges Bouasker, who runs the city's Menara Hotel and heads the regional hotel federation.
“We have to reclaim our beach that has been swallowed up by the sea,” she said, calling for a balance between preserving the landscape loved by locals and foreign visitors and fighting coastal erosion.
“For us, the priority is not to affect the beauty of the city,” she said.
Buasker said she has seen increased awareness among authorities, but filling beaches with sand is still a gamble.
“We don't know how the sea will react,” she added.
