Removing Hard Structures to Improving

Functional Beaches

Bjärred is a part of Lomma municipality . An open water solution for surface water, ie a drainage pipe system, was arranged in Bjärred through removing an old outlet. The open water solution design is made by experts. 

The action took place at the same location as where invasive species were removed. The hard structures that surrounded the mouth of the two storm water pipelines, were removed and an open surface solution for the surface water was created.

Now, the outlet is placed further up, closer to land.

Hard protections were removed in Fortuna, Helsingborg municipality. The measures in the project were connected, which caused a bit of delay and new investigations. The approach at Fortuna turned out to be slightly different from what was originally proposed. Most important are the results from the vegetation monitoring of the seafloor, carried out in 2019 and 2020, showing dense eelgrass meadows outside Fortuna beach. Eelgrass is vulnerable for disturbances and changes in sediment transport.

Another alteration early in the project was not to remove a long groin on the border to an adjacent municipality, Landskrona. For reasons both legal and technical, it would be of no relevance to the project. Legal experts declared that a permit for water activities would have been required. Applying for such a permit can take more years than the project would last. Furthermore, it was doubtful whether a permit would have been granted. The stakeholders would have been many, and that posed a great risk for an appeal and further delays. Technically, if the long groin would have been removed, the waves would have levelled the shoreline by spreading the sand along the beach until it reached a natural balance. But, in Fortuna there are properties directly located along the narrow beach, and those properties hinder such a natural balance. The properties in question are currently protected by the groin. If we remove the groin, without taking large-scale compensatory action (larger than the ones in this project), the shoreline could eventually retreat. Even with compensatory actions, the municipality would have taken on a responsibility to protect these buildings for a long time ahead, which made this measure inapt. In addition to this, the sediment transport that such a measure entails would have been a risk of damaging the eelgrass biotopes near the groin and in the area, which would have meant a significantly negative environmental impact.

Under Documentation, reports and such are published as the project goes along.