Beach nourishment projects, practices, and objectives—a European overview H. Hanson a, * , A. Brampton b , M. Capobianco c , H.H. Dette d , L. Hamm e , C. Laustrup f , A. Lechuga g , R. Spanhoff h a Department of Water Research Engineering, University of Lund, P.O. Box 118, 22100 Lund, Sweden b Coastal Group, HR Wallingford, Howbery Park, Wallingford, Oxon OX10 8BA, UK c SATE Srl–Systems and Advanced Technologies Engineering, Santa Croce 664/a, 30135 Venice, Italy d Leichtweiss Institut fu ¨r Wasserbau, Technischen Universita ¨t Braunschweig, P.O. Box 3329, D-38023, Brunswick, Germany e SOGREAH Inge ´nierie, 6 rue de Lorraine, 38130 Echirolles, France f Danish Coastal Authority, P.O. Box 100, DK 7620 Lemvig, Denmark g Centro de Estudios de Puertos y Costas, Antonio Lo ´pez 81, 28024 Madrid, Spain h National Institute for Coastal and Marine Management/RIKZ, Ministry of Transport, Public Works, and Water Management, P.O. Box 20907, 2500 EX, The Hague, The Netherlands Abstract The uses of beach fill in the countries of the European Union are highlighted and discussed with respect to the general situation, project type and objectives, design and evaluation procedures, legal framework, and financial aspects. As expected, significant differences were found among the investigated countries. In general, the study shows that it would be very profitable for south European countries to learn about the Dutch and German practices, particularly regarding the long-term coastal management and the regular monitoring of the coastal morphology. On the other hand, recent Dutch experience has shown that their legal system is a bit rigid, leading sometimes to renourishments that are less necessary to reach the global objective. D 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Beach fill; Beach nourishment; Nourishment design; Evaluation procedures 1. Introduction The present study is part of a project called SAFE (Performance of Soft Beach Systems and Nourish- ment Measures for European Coasts), sponsored by the European Commission. This project, conducted between March 1996 and June 1999, aimed at contributing to the improvement of the design prac- tices of artificial nourishment schemes in Europe (Hamm et al., 2002, this issue). As a part of this project, an inventory of and a comparison between the major nourishment countries involved in the SAFE project were performed. The objective of this particular study is to com- pile, disseminate, and exchange national information on a European level concerning beach fill operations for coastal protection, on the projects involved and on the practices used. A tour is taken through the major beach nourishment countries in Europe, in no 0378-3839/02/$ - see front matter D 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S0378-3839(02)00122-9 * Corresponding author. Fax: +46-46-222-4435. E-mail address: Hans.Hanson@tvrl.lth.se (H. Hanson). www.elsevier.com/locate/coastaleng Coastal Engineering 47 (2002) 81– 111