Promoting algae-free coastlines increases coastal erosion

Sargassum is an algae that often accumulates in large quantities on beaches, harming nesting turtles and negatively affecting tourism. Sargassum is often removed to solve these problems, contributing to increased coastal erosion. Sargassum is essential to prevent coastal erosion and its removal can have a negative impact on beach stability.

Algae often accumulates in large quantities on beaches and risks harming nesting turtles and negatively affecting tourism in some regions. Hence it is often removed to solve these problems, but this can unintentionally contribute to increased coastal erosion, as some species of algae are essential to prevent coastal erosion and its removal can have a negative impact on beach stability.

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some attempts made
past case
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ongoing case
no attempts made

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Promoting algae-free coastlines increases coastal erosion

Sargassum is an algae that often accumulates in large quantities on beaches, harming nesting turtles and negatively affecting tourism. Sargassum is often removed to solve these problems, contributing to increased coastal erosion. Sargassum is essential to prevent coastal erosion and its removal can have a negative impact on beach stability.

Algae often accumulates in large quantities on beaches and risks harming nesting turtles and negatively affecting tourism in some regions. Hence it is often removed to solve these problems, but this can unintentionally contribute to increased coastal erosion, as some species of algae are essential to prevent coastal erosion and its removal can have a negative impact on beach stability.

In Malaysia a local algae species has been identified to have the potential to prevent soil erosion if used in biological soil crust (BSC) initiatives. Making some soils even 135% more resistant to erosion. Thus using such algae in BSC projects and preventing its removal may have considerable impacts to prevent soil erosion in Malysia.

Kuwabara T., Iwamoto K., Hara H., Yamaguchi T., Mohamad S.E., Abdullah N., Khudzari J., Othman F.S. (2021). Prevention of Soil Erosion Using Microalgae in Malaysia. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1051 012047, 1-8. 

Maurer, A.S., Stapleton, S.P., Layman, C.A. & Reiskind, M.O.B. (2021). The Atlantic Sargassum invasion impedes beach access for nesting sea turtles. Climate Change Ecology, 2, 100034. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecochg.2021.100034 

Innocenti, R.A., Feagin, R.A. & Huff, T.P. (2018). The role of Sargassum macroalgal wrack in reducing coastal erosion. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 214, 82-88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2018.09.021