HAMMAMET, Tunisia: In the Tunisian seaside town of Hammamet, bulldozers are busily dumping sand from a nearby desert onto a popular beach in an attempt to keep it from disappearing due to erosion.
“This beach is the postcard image of Hammamet,” said environmentalist Chiheb Ben Fredj, looking nostalgically at the city's iconic Yasmine Beach.
“It has been ingrained in our minds since childhood,” he added, as workers worked to restore the Tunisian central bank to its former sandy glory.
Like many other coastal areas in North Africa, severe erosion has seen many of Hammamet's sandy beaches disappear in recent years, affecting the holiday hotspot about 65 kilometers (40 miles) east of the capital Tunis.
Coasts around the world are in constant natural flux, with the seas reclaiming and depositing sediment.
But human activity, including coastal property development and offshore sand mining, is significantly accelerating beach erosion.
Among other impacts, construction and coastal defenses in an area can prevent sediment from moving along a coastline, leaving existing beaches devoid of new material.
Studies have also shown that the impacts of climate change, including rising temperatures and sea levels, are exacerbating the phenomenon.
In the Mediterranean, where Britain's National Oceanography Center says sea levels have risen at a faster rate in the past 20 years than in the entire 20th century, shorelines are changing rapidly.
The sea is also warming 20 percent faster than the rest of the world, according to the United Nations.
Tunisia's coastline has been a major asset for the struggling Mediterranean country as it aims to welcome around 10 million tourists this year.
Tourism accounts for up to 14% of the country's GDP, providing tens of thousands of jobs in a country where unemployment exceeds 16% and 40% among young people.
Tunisia has already lost more than 90 kilometers of beaches to erosion, according to official figures from last year.
Of the country's 570 kilometers of sandy beaches suitable for swimming, 190 kilometers are at imminent risk of disappearing, according to Tunisian reports.
Most of the beaches most affected by erosion are located near cities.
Environmental groups in Tunisia, as well as the government's Coastal Protection and Development Agency (APAL), blame the rapid erosion mainly on human activity and coastal construction, which they say is further exacerbated by climate change.
“The construction projects were not designed to respect the dynamics of the coastline,” an APAL official 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 full of sand from the inland desert province of Kairouan, about 110 kilometers away.
APAL, which operates under the Ministry of the Environment, has been in a race against time to replenish the beach before the peak tourist season.
But while rebuilding beaches, known as beach nourishment, may be a quick fix, “it's not a sustainable solution,” said Ben Fredj.
“This sand may not last long,” added the general secretary of the Association for Environmental Education.
“It can be swallowed up in a few days in a storm,” he said, as was the case in the summer of 2023.
The process can also prove costly.
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 locals, restoring their priceless waterfront is worth the money.
Yasmine Beach “is a showcase for Hammamet,” said Narjess Bouasker, who runs the city's Menara Hotel and heads the regional hotel federation.
“We need to take back the beach that the sea has swallowed,” she said, calling for a balance between protecting the landscape, valued by locals and foreign visitors alike, and fighting coastal erosion.
“For us, the priority is not to touch the beauty of the city,” she said.
Bouasker said he has seen an increase in awareness among authorities, but filling beaches with sand is still a gamble.
“We don't know how the sea will react,” she added.
