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Thursday, July 10, 2025

What is causing Cedros coastal erosion?

by

2689 days ago
20180228

Ge­ol­o­gist Xavier Moo­nan does not be­lieve the mas­sive coastal ero­sion which oc­curred at Bam­boo Vil­lage, Ce­dros, was re­lat­ed to the se­ries of mi­nor earth­quakes and re­cent vol­canic erup­tion ex­pe­ri­enced in T&T in the past few weeks.

Rather, Moo­nan, who lec­tures in Struc­tur­al Ge­ol­o­gy and Ad­vanced Pe­tro­le­um Ge­ol­o­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, says cli­mate change and ris­ing sea lev­els have con­tributed to coastal ero­sion in the Caribbean.

How­ev­er, he be­lieves the ero­sion in Ce­dros is a nat­ur­al process which could be stymied through the con­struc­tion of ar­ti­fi­cial reefs and man­grove cul­ti­va­tion.

“There is no re­al stop­ping the sea from com­ing in. You can build walls, but some coun­tries have made ar­ti­fi­cial reefs which can re­duce the im­pact of the waves on the coast­line and al­low de­po­si­tion of ma­te­r­i­al rather than ero­sion. I don’t know if this will work for short term, but it is some­thing worth look­ing at,” Moo­nan said yes­ter­day.

He said the vil­lage sits on a silty and clay-rich area which is ex­posed along the bay and these ar­eas are prone to ero­sion. He sug­gest­ed the clay-rich ar­eas be­low the main sand-rich zones, which is where hous­es are built, were erod­ed over time com­pro­mis­ing the area.

Say­ing ar­ti­fi­cial reefs are not cost­ly, Moo­nan added, “We can chain tyres to­geth­er or put a break­er of wreck­age that can stop the im­pact of the waves on the coast­line. The key thing is to pre­serve the land and pro­tect the coast­line.”

Moo­nan said the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs has been study­ing the dy­nam­ics of ero­sion in all parts of the coun­try.

How­ev­er, re­searcher Gideon Hanoomans­ingh, who has been study­ing ero­sion on the south west­ern penin­su­lar for 20 years, said the amount of land lost over the years has been as­ton­ish­ing.

“Right at the mo­ment, as we speak, there is a house perched to fall in­to the ocean in Guayagua­yare. Land is be­ing lost at a ter­rif­ic rate in Granville. When we talk to peo­ple we hear de­nials from coastal de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cials say­ing their work has noth­ing to do with land loss, but peo­ple are mea­sur­ing how the land has been lost since de­vel­op­ments have been tak­ing place,” Hanoomans­ingh said.

Ce­dros res­i­dent Lat­iff Mo­hammed said since the At­lantic LNG plant was built the wave dy­nam­ics had changed in the penin­su­la.

He said there was about half a mile of beach-front stretch­ing in front of their homes, but over the past few years the sea has backed up right be­hind their homes.


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