Kosrae's Coast
Reducing coastal hazard risks on Kosrae
case studies
(C) Doug Ramsay & KIRMA, 2008
Learning from the past
A number of past activites have had undersirable long-term negative impacts on parts of the Kosrae coast. This section outlines some of these activities, the problems that resulted and the lessons that have been learnt, with the aim of avoiding similar activities, and associated impacts in the future.
This section will be expanded to include more case studies in due course.
This section will be expanded to include more case studies in due course.
Building seawalls along many parts of the coastline of Kosrae has the potential to exacerbate erosion on adjacent sections of the coast. In many cases this then leads to larger and longer defences being built, which in turn leads to further or larger impacts.
Dredging the fringing reef flat for construction material normally will result in substantial erosion of the adjacent coastline as it will change the ways waves move over the reef flat towards the shoreline and will interupt and trap the natural movements of sand moving over the reef flat.
In this section:
(C) Doug Ramsay & KIRMA, 2008
Erosion at the Sandy Beach Hotel
Reef flat dredging for construction fill
Removing sand and cobbles from the reef and beach
Probably the most significant factor contributing to the coastal erosion problems being experienced around Kosrae today, has been the removal of large amounts of coral rubble from the reef flat and sand from the shoreline for development projects over the last 40 to 50 years.
Walung artificial drainage channel
Creating artificial drainage channels to aid the drainage from rivers or wetland areas on Kosrae rarely improves drainage of freshwater and is likely to have significant long term impacts on the surrounding sections of the coast.