Plan to restore golden sands of Pattaya

4 Oct 2011

A research team has formulated a plan that will see Pattaya’s beach restored to its glory days of yesteryear. In 1952, the beach was 35m wide, but coastal erosion has reduced it to just 4m. The tiny area of sands almost disappears at high tide.

Professor Thanawat Jarupongsakul, a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Science at Chulalongkorn University, led a 20-strong team who have formulated a plan to enlarge the beach to 1952 levels and also keep it at that size. The scheme calls for 370,000m³ of sand to be dredged from a Rayong river and placed on the three kilometre beach that connects North and South Pattaya.

The professor said the team had chosen the river’s sand as it has a similar texture and size of grain as that at Pattaya. He added that his researchers had run chemical analyses on the river sand and ascertained that it had not been contaminated by toxic chemicals.

The mouth of the river is 90kms away from Pattaya. The beach expansion scheme will see the sand replaced in stretches of 100m at a time, which should cause minimum disruption to tourists and beach vendors. Once the beach reclamation is underway, it should be completed within eight months

The team’s calculations have shown that once the beach is 35m wide, it will suffer erosion in its first year which will then tail off. The researchers believe that additional sand will have to be added every 10 years, unless there are lots of heavy storms and seas.

Tags: restore sands Pattaya