Pattaya Bay

Question 1

Pattaya

Answer 1

• The building of houses and tourism facilities often takes place directly in replacement of sand dunes without consideration of the movements of sediments
• SEAWALLS are often constructed to contain (hold) the increasing erosion in the urban areas.
• a tourist resort located along the Gulf of Thailand,
  160km south-east of Bangkok.
• Over 5 million tourists visit the resort each year.
• Over-development and lack of planning have long since destroyed some of the natural charms the area once had.

Question 2

Changes to Pattaya Bay sediment cell

Answer 2

• In the 1950s, before the tourist era, Pattaya Beach in
  Thailand was very wide
• With massive tourist development, the beach area has fallen by half by 2002, with 19 metres to the shoreline.
• problem is so severe business owners are now being forced to stack sandbags around their deckchairs to keep them from being washed away by waves.
• Given the accelerating rate of sand erosion, Pattaya
  beach might disappear entirely in 5 years time

Question 3

Inappropriate protection structure at Pattaya Beach

Answer 3

• man-made structures built to prevent erosion, such as
  beach walls can actually worsen the overall situation and can result in net loss of beach sand.
• this was especially the case for the seawall built
• erosion of beach has been over a metre in several places, as seen by this seawall.
• erosion of the beach has exposed and weakened roots of trees, which previously anchored layers of sand.

Question 4

Urbanisation at Pattaya Beach

Answer 4

• Urbanisation and a main road close to the beach has resulted in removal of coconut trees that once stablised the sand deposits and an extensive impermeable surface near the beach
• Urbanisation has prevented the beach building up in
  size and increased run-off to the beach during
  storms.
• Much of Pattaya’s beach loss could have been avoided if buildings and a road were not built so close to the water.

Question 5

Seawall built at Pattaya Beach

Answer 5

• Seawalls influence the beach in front of them in various
  ways.
• Swash that is reflected by a seawall is directed seaward several seconds earlier than swash on a natural
  beach, increasing backwash duration and velocity.
• This means that at high tide, when waves wash up against the walls, waves reflect back towards the sea with much more energy than if the wall wasn’t there.
• These reflected waves often cause the sand beach in front of a seawall to erode twice as fast as a beach without a seawall.
• As the beach continues to erode, the seawall may also block natural replenishment of sand from behind the wall.
• The seawall, then, prevents the landward migration of the beach and built-up of the beach
• Although they may sometimes achieve some success as building protectors, research has shown that seawalls are almost always detrimental to beaches.

Question 6

Reasons to Protect Pattaya’s Beaches

Answer 6

• Sandy beaches are the backbone of Pattaya’s tourism economy, as many visitors enjoy the beach during the daytime.
• Beaches are critical in flood and erosion prevention by serving as a natural buffer to prevent property damage from storm waves.
• As beaches narrow and disappear, shoreline properties become increasingly vulnerable to coastal hazards.
• Beaches and dunes are important elements of our shoreline environment and are critical to the health of the coastal marine ecosystem.

Question 7

Solution in Pattaya: BEACH NOURISHMENT

Answer 7

• 200,000 cubic meters of sand will be pumped onto the beach to expand its width to 30 metres.
• This will involve dredging the sand from a river
  mouth in nearby Rayong.
• This solution is quick and easy but it is expensive. But this short-term answer will certainly not solve the
  longstanding problem of sand erosion.
• Eventually, however, the same forces that eroded the
  beach in the first place will remove sand, causing the
  problem to return.
• As a result sand might have to be
  pumped onto the beach about every five years.