The explanations were given at the Figueira da Foz City Hall, in the district of Coimbra, during the signing of a contract for artificial beach nourishment on the coastal stretch south of Figueira da Foz (Cova Gala — Costa de Lavos), amounting to 21 million euros.
“The average annual retreat of the beach, according to studies conducted by the Portuguese Environment Agency, reached 5.5 meters in recent years, with 52% of the intervention area already in a state of extreme erosion,” noted the government official.
The works will be carried out between groins 3 and 5, in stages, and will not affect the upcoming bathing season, allowing the transfer of 3.3 million cubic meters (m3) of sand to combat coastal erosion over a 120-day execution period.
The intervention involves dredging sediments from a zone north of the North jetty of the Figueira da Foz port and depositing them on southern beaches, which are severely affected by erosion phenomena.
The Minister of the Environment and Energy highlighted the project’s emblematic nature due to its large scale, considering the planned work as one of the most significant interventions on the national coastline.
“It constitutes the largest artificial beach nourishment intervention ever carried out in Portugal,” emphasized Maria da Graça Carvalho, highlighting the project’s immense complexity, which focuses on a beach and dune area that has been experiencing significant erosion, especially over the last decade.
According to the government official, this is an absolutely necessary project, “providing a short- and medium-term solution to an urgent problem.”
“But also a project that, given our current understanding of humans’ impact on this problem – particularly through the extension, some decades ago, of the commercial port jetty of Figueira da Foz – should serve as a warning for the future,” she stressed.
The president of the Portuguese Environment Agency stated that the intervention aims to restore the coastline to its 2010 position and will have a longevity of five to seven years, depending on the severity of winters.
According to Pimenta Machado, the project will induce a retreat at Praia da Claridade, “which is very wide,” without affecting the bathing season, the only period when these types of works can be carried out.
Despite expressing satisfaction with the contract signing, the mayor of Figueira da Foz, Pedro Santana Lopes, also urged the APA to intervene at the Leirosa beach, also on the southern coast of the municipality.
“It is a very important day for Figueira da Foz,” said the mayor, lamenting, however, the time these processes took to come to fruition.
This process has been delayed for years, having been publicly announced for the first time in 2019 by the government at the time, but the planned schedule had never been realized until today.
The project is financed with 18 million euros secured by the Thematic Program for Climate Action and Sustainability 2030, plus 2.5 million euros from the APA and a small contribution from the Figueira da Foz Port and Municipal Council.
The works commence today after the contract between the APA and the Danish consortium Rohde Nielsen, which was awarded the project, was signed and approved by the Minister of the Environment and Energy.
