Barcelona tries to save its disappearing beaches

Created in time for the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, Bogatell beach is a popular destination for outdoor sports players and sun worshippers

Credit: Josep Lago/AFP

Barcelona is trying to save its disappearing beaches amid a clash between Spain and Catalonia over the fate of one of the Mediterranean city’s biggest assets.

Spain’s second city has long been one of the country’s most popular tourist attractions because of its combination of beautiful beaches and cultural attractions.

But miles of golden sands are vanishing into the sea thanks to climate change and because the beaches were poorly constructed, especially for the 1992 Olympics Games. Before the Games put Barcelona on the international map, the city did not have any beaches at all and was a provincial port.

Each year, 40,000 cubic metres of sand on the beaches is washed away into the sea, the city council said.

The Spanish government, which has national responsibility for beaches, shipped in 700,000 cubic metres of sand onto the beaches in 2010. Since then, 70 per cent of the sand has been washed away.

Barcelona's golden sands, pictured last year

Credit: Shihan Shan/Getty Images

Barcelona’s city’s council has now formed a special commission of experts to try to save the Catalan capital’s beaches.

Eloi Badia, Barcelona’s head of climate change and ecological transition, named a team of geologists, geographers and architects who will find a way to rescue the golden sands.

"Climate change, which has brought higher seas as well as big waves, has meant that we have lost a lot of sand," said Mr Badia. "What we need to do is to make a beach which is resilient, adapted to climate change and which is more sustainable."

He added that, when Barcelona constructed the beaches before the 1992 Olympic Games to make the city more attractive, they had been poorly built. Some of the beaches are less than 25 metres wide because of the erosion.

Mar Bella, a beach at the centre of Barcelona, has been closed to the public because it is dangerous, officials said. "On this beach, the foundations of the dune can be seen because of the amount of sand that has been taken away by the sea. People could fall if they pass there, so we have closed it," a council spokesman said.

A spokesman for the Spanish government said: "We have not received any request for help with the beaches of Barcelona from the city council. If we do, we will have to consider it on the basis of its impact on the environment. A special department for coastal matters deals with this subject."