Morphosedimentary and ecosystem evolution at Belharucas beach after a sand nourishment (Algarve, south Portugal)

<p>Beach nourishment is an increasingly recommended solution for reversing the erosion process that affects nowadays the coastal zone. Usually, it is used in emergency situations as a local and short-term solution or as a regional and long-term management strategy.</p><p>From April 2017 to November 2019, sediment samples and beach profile data were collected seasonally, before and after a sand nourishment (100.000m³) that increased 30m of width in Belharucas beach (south Portugal, Algarve).</p><p>The main objective of the work was to evaluate the nourishment impact in the beach ecosystem, aiming at contributing to seafloor integrity assessment, in the scope of Descriptor 6 of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive.&#160;</p><p>Methodology included grain size and macrobenthic fauna analyses in two profiles of the nourished area and another one further away, selected as a control area. Each profile was sampled at three intertidal zones: supralittoral (beach berm), mediolittoral (beach face) and infralittoral (low tide terrace).&#160; Beach profile data were collected with the main objective of measuring the beach width and evaluate nourishment longevity.</p><p>Results show that grain size variability, higher at beach face, is dominated by local energy beach conditions rather than to changes related to the nourishment.</p><p>Morphological data shows that beach nourishment had a relatively low longevity as two years after the nourished beach present roughly the same width as priori to nourishment.</p><p>While supralittoral samples were defaunated, medio and infralittoral ones exhibited extremely low diversity. Assemblages were dominated by small-size polychaetes, bivalves and isopods. No statistically significant differences were found in assemblage composition regarding pre- and post-sand nourishment, year seasons, tidal zones and control stations.</p><p>In conclusion, Belharucas beach exhibited high resilience to the sand nourishment, preserving its morphodynamics and ecosystem conditions.</p><p>&#160;</p><p>The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support FCT through project UIDB/50019/2020 &#8211; IDL and through the strategic project UIDB/MAR/04292/2019 - MARE and ECOEXA project (MAR-01.04.02-FEAMP-0016)</p>