Tottori learns to protect its sand dunes
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Tottori learns to protect its sand dunes
BY TAKESHI AMANO, THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
The dunes attract visitors during holidays.
Facing the Sea of Japan, the Tottori Sand Dunes are some of the most spectacular dunes in the country and a major tourist attraction. But over the decades, they have lost some of their beauty due to severe erosion.
Surveys conducted by the Tottori prefectural government show that the main cause of the erosion is a change in the coastal currents caused by port construction.
As a countermeasure, the prefectural government in 2005 began recycling sand dredged from the harbor. This has succeeded in halting further erosion. The effort is attracting attention as a model to fight similar cases that occur frequently around Japan.
Measuring 16 kilometers from east to west and 2.4 km from north to south, the dunes are famed for their majestic, undulating beauty. Near the sea, however, parts of the dunes have collapsed and appear cliff-like.
Many years ago, the dunes ran down to the sea in gentle curves. However, over the past 50 years the shoreline has receded about 40 meters, eroded by the ceaseless pounding of the waves.
The collapsed section of the dunes stretches about 500 meters, exposing old geological layers that are a few meters high.
"The wide sand beach that was here in my childhood is gone," said Yoshiyuki Yasumoto, 36, a prefectural government employee.
Erosion has also taken its toll on other beaches. The issue was taken up a few years ago by the prefectural assembly.
Then-Governor Yoshihiro Katayama acknowledged the seriousness of the problem and vowed to work up a strategy to cope with the destruction. The work started in 2002.
At the time, Kazunari Yamada, 54, was assistant chief of the rivers, erosion and sediment section. His group was responsible for managing the seashore. Yamada and Yasumoto, who was also a member of the section, were assigned to the project.
They collected old aerial photos to track the changes in the shoreline and in 2004 launched a study committee of experts on seashores and harbors. Takaaki Uda, former head of the department in charge of rivers at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism's Public Works Research Institute, was a member of the committee.
The Tottori Sand Dunes were formed by sand deposited by the Sendaigawa river, located about 3 km to the west.
But with the upgrade of Tottori Port facilities located at the mouth of the river in the 1980s and the construction of a massive breakwater, sand from the river and the dunes flowed inside the breakwater. The gentle waves in the protected area allowed the sand to settle to the bottom.
Studies showed that when this sand was dredged to clear routes for ships, even more sand filled the void. Construction of harbors and fishing ports were also blamed for erosion of other coastal areas.
To protect the sand beaches, the prefectural government established a set of guidelines in 2005 for administrators of different government entities to cooperate in determining the causes and taking measures to fight back.
The same year, work began to return soil and sand dredged from Tottori Port to shallow waters in front of the dunes.
Prior to this, the dredged sand was used in land reclamation projects. Last summer, the prefectural government announced that the shoreline that had previously disappeared at an average rate of 80 centimeters a year was no longer receding.
Success stories like these are rare in Japan and municipalities in Kanagawa and Shizuoka prefectures that suffer similar erosion problems sent observers to Tottori.
Along with ports, dams are also responsible for seashore erosion.
At Nakatajima Sand Dunes in Shizuoka Prefecture facing the Enshunada Sea, the shoreline has receded about 200 meters during the past 40 years.
According to the Shizuoka prefectural government, a major cause is the construction of a large dam that stopped Tenryugawa river from supplying sand to the dunes. Starting in fiscal 2003, the prefectural government began artificially pouring sand into the dunes.
In fiscal 2009, the central government will start building a tunnel to funnel soil and sand from the upper reaches of the dam downstream.
Sand beaches have many functions--protecting land from high waves, providing habitats and spawning grounds for living creatures, as well as places for recreational activities.
According to Uda, who studied dunes nationwide, erosion is taking place everywhere. And almost without exception, artificial causes such as ports and dams are to blame.
Municipalities that manage the sand beaches often take actions that result in unintended consequences.
An example is the construction of the offshore breakwater that runs parallel to the shoreline in the hope of weakening the force of the waves.
This, however, could change the action of the waves and cause erosion at another beach. Uda noted that unless the primary cause of the problem is dealt with, many "fixes" can result in simply moving sand from one beach to another.
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Mui Ne sand dunes in Vietnam is closer. Very unusual. Many kids will ask you to ski on the dunes.
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Lots of good resorts on nice stretches of beach near these dunes in Mui Ne. Less touristic as compare to Patong in Phuket or Nusa Dua in Bali. Picturesque too. About 4 hours drive from Ho Chi Minh City north.
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Mui Ne Beach, Vietnam
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Kanyakumari, India where sands of 3 colours meets.
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All the 4 photographics are really very very beautiful, but I wonder, how come the 1st photograph is so familiar to me har? i wonder where i saw that before
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Originally posted by Bangulzai:
All the 4 photographics are really very very beautiful, but I wonder, how come the 1st photograph is so familiar to me har? i wonder where i saw that before
Almost all sand dunes looks the same. I guess the 1st pic sum it up.
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Tottori Beach sand dune, Japan
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Beach resort at Mui Ne, Vietnam
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Originally posted by Chew Bakar:
Beach resort at Mui Ne, Vietnam
the Mui Ne look too commercialized among other sand sceneries, therefore it would be the last that i would choose to go
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Omg .. so nice! I wanna go...