Coastal protection challenges after heavy storms on the Polish coast

Abstract

The paper presents the implications for future coastal protection and management policies at the marginal shelf sea on the Polish Baltic Sea coast. These emerged after a series of almost overlapping storms in January and February 2022, causing massive dune retreat at locations where hitherto relatively stable beaches demonstrated sediment deficits under long periods of more energetic wave climate and especially elevated sea levels. On the other hand, sand-saturated areas showed greater resilience. The potential sediment scarcity is expected to be linked to a possible interaction between local geological makeup and climate change-induced increases in storminess. Sandy beaches with pronounced organic intrusions become no longer sufficiently resilient. The culprit seems to be peat outcrops on the emerged beaches and its lenses inside dune massifs. Under such circumstances, it can be expected that in the future, initially isolated erosion hotspots will gradually transform into large erosion embayments. Consequently, future coastal protection and management will no longer be able to rely solely on pure nature-based solutions, but, respecting the building with nature paradigm, will involve more complex schemes with unnatural materials kept at the minimum volume to avoid disruption of seascape/landscape and discontinuity and disconnectivity of ecosystem services. However, it is important to realize that such more advanced protection measures will come at a higher cost, and coastal segments without vital economic or ecological value will have to be abandoned.