The Impact of Man on the Shoreline Environment of the Costa Del Sol, Southern Spain

Assessment and projections of sediment budget resilience in Marbella, Spain

“…However, the assessment of coastal resilience continues to be the future objective of new research, as proxies such as sediment starvation cannot be categorically assumed to have a quantifiable effect on beach erosion. The main sediment source to Mediterranean littoral systems comes from the hydrographic network (McDowell et al, 1993;Liquete et al, 2004;Syvitski et al, 2005; among others), and considering the behavior of reservoir lakes and dams as lithogenous sediment traps (Willis and Griggs, 2003;Randle et al, 2006;among others), their impact on the terrestrial sediment dynamics would be as expected. Damming the main water course of a river produces a huge reduction in the sediment volume transported downstream and, ultimately, leads to severe coastal erosion.…”

“…The recent evolution of the shoreline in the Bay of Marbella has shown a consistent retreat since 1956. Though the shoreline has been overall transgressive, its position has been heavily influenced by engineering structures, such as the groin fields of 1973, which produced a net advance of the shoreline but introduced localized hotspots of erosion, causing a sequence of narrow/steep sections at intervals (McDowell et al, 1993). The deterioration of back beach resources for storm protection caused various initiatives to be put in place since the 1970s to date, resulting in significant beach fills over the years (Malvarez, 2012).…”