Mexico’s Beaches Shrink 2 Meters Annually

Cancún, QRoo — The state of Quintana Roo is losing its beaches at a rate of two meters per year due to erosion, even as construction continues on thousands of new hotel rooms that accelerate the loss of sand.

Rodolfo Silva Casarín, head of the Oceanographic and Coastal Engineering group at the Institute of Engineering of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), presented a diagnosis of beach erosion in the Mexican Caribbean at the University of the Caribbean. He explained that the erosion phenomenon is not exclusive to Cancún, Playa del Carmen, or Tulum, but is a constant in the world's main coastal destinations.

This phenomenon is even natural, as are tropical storms or hurricanes, but "it can become a problem when it is exacerbated by human activities," according to one of the conclusions of the diagnosis presented by the academic.

In the case of Cancún and the rest of Quintana Roo, erosion has already reached critical levels in more than 80% of the coastline. This is largely explained not only by the presence of large hotel structures but also by poor water quality resulting from population growth, whose waste ends up filtering into the subsoil and inevitably reaches the sea.

This has caused the coastal habitat to stop generating the sediments that the coral reef and the hundreds of species that inhabited it previously generated. When these species died, they would become the granules of white sand so characteristic of the Mexican Caribbean.

It is in this context that the academic considers that Quintana Roo can no longer withstand more overload on its coastline, including the hotels and other tourist activities that accelerate the deterioration of the coastal system.

In the face of evident erosion, beach rescue projects for the front of a hotel have multiplied in recent years. Far from conserving the sand, these projects accelerate erosion in adjacent areas, as a partial rescue inevitably affects the beach of its neighbors due to a lack of comprehensive planning, the academic explained.

He considered it urgent to opt for long-term solutions, such as the rehabilitation of the coral habitat, as the only alternative to once again generate the sediment from which the beaches of Cancún and the Riviera Maya are made. However, he recalled that in 2006 and 2009, short-term solutions were chosen through the artificial filling of several kilometers of coastline in the northern zone of Quintana Roo, without taking into account the health of the reefs.

Finally, he referred to the problem of sargassum, which, when collected from the beaches, is accelerating erosion. Nevertheless, he considered it positive that it is now considered a valuable resource, as among its various uses is the treatment of wastewater.