Locked in by Earth's ris­ing tem­per­a­tures and high­er sea lev­els ex­ac­er­bat­ed by melt­ing po­lar ice caps, coastal com­mu­ni­ties in T&T are fac­ing the brunt of ac­cel­er­at­ed ero­sion which con­tin­ues to de­stroy beach­es and sea­side prop­er­ties.

Hun­dreds of acres of lands have al­ready been gob­bled up by the sea and based on the sta­tis­tics from the Coastal Pro­tec­tion Unit, 19 homes have been se­vere­ly dam­aged with­in the past few years.

The ar­eas worst af­fect­ed are Man­zanil­la Beach (be­tween Man­zanil­la Point and Radix Point) on the East Coast, the south­east­ern vil­lages of Guayagua­yare and Calma­pass; south­west­ern ar­eas of Ce­dros, Ica­cos, Cap de Ville, Granville; Quinam, Los Iros; and the North­east­ern ar­eas of Matelot, Sans Souci and Blan­chisseuse.

On the East Coast, the his­toric sea­wall in Guayagua­yare is col­laps­ing.

Bat­tered by the force of the mighty At­lantic, sev­er­al homes are in grave dan­ger while the shells of oth­ers, al­ready claimed by the seas, mar the hori­zon.

Nicole Sankar, of Guayagua­yare, says every day she lives with the fear that one day all of her pos­ses­sions will dis­ap­pear in­to the sea. When you look out­side of her bed­room win­dow, the sea laps qui­et­ly hav­ing al­ready gnawed away huge chunks of the land.

The con­crete steps of a house that once stood near­by re­mains as a grim re­minder of the dev­as­ta­tion, along with bound­ary pick­ets, rot­ted tree trunks and bushy tree roots.

With no place to go, Sankar said she and her hus­band Mar­lon Bryan and their two chil­dren — Mari­ah Bryan, 11 and Nico­las Bryan, 20 — have de­cid­ed to take their chances at the seafront.

"It's years now they speak­ing about re­lo­cat­ing us but noth­ing has been done. We are just wait­ing to see what will hap­pen," Sankar said. Her 72-year-old neigh­bour Julie Ed­wards said a sea wall be­hind her home col­lapsed sev­er­al years ago cut­ting a gul­ly.

Her neigh­bour Murela Win­ches­ter died six years ago from wor­ry over los­ing her home. To­day the waves gush in­side of Win­ches­ter's aban­doned house.

Ed­wards said she has been beg­ging for help.

"You think any­body will ever do any­thing to save my house," she asked.

Next door to her home, the roof of an­oth­er house hung loose­ly while heaps of tyes were packed be­hind the struc­ture to fend off the im­pact of the waves.

On the South­ern Coast, ero­sion has changed the ap­pear­ance of some beach­es. At Bam­boo Vil­lage two homes col­lapsed in­to the sea on Feb­ru­ary 26, 2018, leav­ing 150-feet precipice in the de­sert­ed vil­lage.

Part of the road which once con­nect­ed Bam­boo Vil­lage is no longer there. Noth­ing has been done to ar­rest the force of ero­sion, and Ce­dros coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh says more than an acre of land has al­ready dis­ap­peared in­to the ocean.

In Granville, an as­phalt road and a play­ing ground have col­lapsed in­to the sea.

Vil­lager Kayso Per­sad said more than three hous­es have been lost. Per­sad, 57, said five acres of es­tate land had gone, in­clud­ing the house in which he was born.

"I grew up over there," he said, point­ing in the di­rec­tion of the sea.

"We can't see the spot where the house once stood, but I re­mem­ber every­thing clear­ly."

He said 50 years ago, the area had a har­bour and ships from Port-of-Spain docked in the Gulf off Granville bring­ing in sup­plies and goods.

Now be­cause of ero­sion, dock­ing there is no longer pos­si­ble, but Per­sad said fish­er­men use an in­let close by to moor their pirogues.

Irvin Ram­paul said most of the ero­sion oc­curred with­in 20 years. He said now that the road is gone, peo­ple use a track to en­ter the area.

"I am al­ways wor­ried about my chil­dren when they dri­ve in to see me. The land is very loose there, and one day soon it will cave in," Ram­paul said.

Caus­es of Coastal Ero­sion

Coastal ero­sion is de­fined as the loss of or dis­place­ment of land, loss of beach vol­ume or land­ward re­treat of the shore­line, dri­ven by the ac­tion of waves, cur­rents, tides and oth­er dri­vers such as storms. In 2014, the Coastal Pro­tec­tion Unit was set up with the aim of ad­dress­ing the prob­lem of coastal ero­sion.

Di­rec­tor of the Coastal Pro­tec­tion Unit, Can­dice Gray-Bernard said sev­er­al strate­gies have been im­ple­ment­ed to save T&T's shrink­ing coasts.

Say­ing T&T has his­tor­i­cal­ly been af­fect­ed by coastal ero­sion and coastal flood­ing, Gray-Bernard said on the south­west coast the most ob­vi­ous in­di­ca­tion of coastal ero­sion or coastal change is the loss at Los Gal­los Point, com­mon­ly re­ferred to as “The Three Sis­ters”.

"Coastal ero­sion in Colum­bus Bay has been ob­served for over 40 years. Be­tween 1994 -2007 the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs record­ed re­treat of 150 me­ters at Cor­ral Point. Be­tween 2011 and 2015 ero­sion rates of 1.91 me­tres per year have been record­ed," Gray-Bernard said.

She not­ed that the ero­sion rate of 0.5 me­tres per year had been record­ed along the Cap-de-Ville shore­line (al­so lo­cat­ed along the south­west coast).

On the South­east coast, Gray-Bernard said the rate of ero­sion in Guayagua­yare was es­ti­mat­ed at 2.5m per year be­tween 1993 and 1996.

"Be­tween 2011 and 2015 ero­sion has been mea­sured at a rate of 0.75 m per year," she added.

"In a cur­rent study be­ing con­duct­ed by the Coastal Pro­tec­tion Unit along Man­zanil­la Beach the av­er­age rate of shore­line re­treat has been es­ti­mat­ed at 0.65 to 1.52 me­tres per year," Gray-Bernard said.

Asked what role cli­mate changes are play­ing in ero­sion, Gray-Bernard said, "The main fac­tors dri­ving ero­sion are the con­fig­u­ra­tion of the bay, the ge­ol­o­gy of the back­shore, waves, cur­rents, winds, tides and sed­i­ment sup­ply. Oth­er nat­ur­al forces that ex­ac­er­bate ero­sion in­clude storm surges, weath­er­ing and sur­face runoff. Hu­man ac­tiv­i­ties can al­so strong­ly in­flu­ence the propen­si­ty of land­forms to erode. For ex­am­ple, the con­struc­tion of ill-de­signed coastal struc­tures can lead to changes in coastal sed­i­ment trans­port path­ways, re­sult­ing in ero­sion in some ar­eas and ac­cre­tion in oth­ers. The re­moval of sed­i­ments from the coastal sys­tem (e.g., by dredg­ing or sand min­ing), or a re­duc­tion in the sup­ply of sed­i­ments (e.g., by the reg­u­la­tion of rivers) can al­so be as­so­ci­at­ed with un­in­tend­ed ero­sion."

She said in re­cent decades, changes in cli­mate have caused im­pacts on nat­ur­al and hu­man sys­tems on all con­ti­nents and across the oceans.

"Ev­i­dence of cli­mate-change im­pacts is strongest and most com­pre­hen­sive for nat­ur­al sys­tems. This in­cludes more fre­quent and in­tense weath­er sys­tems such as hur­ri­canes and drought," Gray-Bernard said.

Sav­ing the Coasts

Sev­er­al strate­gies have been utilised to save the Coast, but not all have worked.

At Granville, a self-help project done by res­i­dents has saved a por­tion of the shore­line, but res­i­dent Sunil Sookram said the job was nev­er com­plet­ed.

At Cap-de-Ville vil­lagers used tyres as a mean of coastal pro­tec­tion but the struc­ture failed un­der the force of waves and coastal ero­sion still threat­ened res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties. In North Man­zanil­la, tyre struc­tures were al­so used by res­i­dents and these struc­tures have failed.

There have been stud­ies that have iden­ti­fied en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pacts of us­ing tyres in the ma­rine en­vi­ron­ment and in par­tic­u­lar the leach­ing of heavy met­als and or­gan­ic com­pounds from tyres in­to sea wa­ter.

Gray said at Matelot shore sta­bil­i­sa­tion work was done with the con­struc­tion of 170 lin­ear me­ters of rub­ble mound revet­ment. Sim­i­lar revet­ment works were al­so done in St He­le­na Vil­lage, in Matelot, while rock revet­ment was done at Sans Souci.

At South Co­cos Bay, Fiber­glass Re­in­forced Poly­mer (FRP) sheet piles were used to stop ero­sion as well as rub­ble mound revet­ment.

Gray said af­ter eval­u­at­ing dif­fer­ent coastal man­age­ment al­ter­na­tives, rock revet­ments were de­ter­mined to be the op­ti­mum coastal man­age­ment so­lu­tion.

"In com­bi­na­tion with rock revet­ments, oth­er coastal pro­tec­tion struc­tures such as sea­walls (Quinam and South Co­cos Bay) and green en­gi­neer­ing tech­niques (coastal cliff sta­bil­i­sa­tion-Quinam and Cap de Ville) have al­so been in­clud­ed in coastal works con­duct­ed by the Min­istry," she said.

She not­ed that rock revet­ments aid in ab­sorb­ing wave en­er­gy by dis­si­pat­ing the en­er­gy of the waves over their many ir­reg­u­lar sur­faces and pre­vent fur­ther re­ces­sion of the back­shore where im­por­tant as­sets lie.

Gray said for those peo­ple who plan to build near the beach, prop­er reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals should be sought from gov­ern­ment agen­cies. She said the re­lo­ca­tion of coastal com­mu­ni­ties was al­so an op­tion in ar­eas worst hit by ero­sion.

She said sci­en­tif­ic in­ves­ti­ga­tions are be­ing con­duct­ed in Ma­yaro, Guayagua­yare, Man­zanil­la, Sans Souci, Matelot, Grand Riv­iere, Blan­chisseuse, Cap de Ville and Quinam.

She not­ed that beach ero­sion is con­tin­u­al­ly be­ing mon­i­tored.

"Beach pro­fil­ing has been con­duct­ed by the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs for over 25 years. The Coastal Pro­tec­tion Unit has al­so con­duct­ed analy­sis such as shore­line change analy­sis us­ing satel­lite im­agery and UAV tech­nol­o­gy at crit­i­cal sites, in­clud­ing Man­zanil­la, Quinam, Cap de Ville, Matelot and Sans Souci," Gray said.