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« Africa Beach » dams building project to stop African coastal erosion


This project makes happen the utopia of halting coastal erosion on African shores but naturally extends to any other analogous coastal domain





Vision


Floating plastics gathered from the seashore are recycled to make cables, ropes and large rubble bags, particularly reinforced.

Empty bags are carried offshore, to be filled with sand from nearby submarine dunes

Sealed bags of sand are brought to be sunk in planned containment works.

Plastic cables and ropes serve to consolidate the structure, which can sometimes use parsimoniously concrete for its foundations or retaining poles.

Sand is seeded by local biotope that will encyst the dam

All studies of this project is available, free to all, with a Commons type licence for local areas communities to build on them, at their pace and means. Project is run with the Wikimedia foundation on its bases and principles of governance.


Genesis


Erosion accelerated by the remodeling of coastal streams and ecosystems, due to cities, ports, disappearance of lagoons, changing of rivers flows and groundwater levels. This brings unbearable economic, environmental, philosophical consequences ...

The difficulty of finding a governance body that does not bog down on considerations of local power, cost / financing, appropriate technique ... making it impossible to establish a holistic solution ....

Urgency makes it impérious to leave the classical field of institutional means and examine unexplored opportunities of participative governance, the potential of the Web to summon huge communities on sustainable concepts such as permaculture, recycling and sharing of the vernacular economy in the conquest of the seas... 


Proposal


The project brings to work together, a global community of knowledgers (universities, companies, institutions, individuals) on one hand, and communities of local actors on the other.

    • "Africa Beach" platform serves as an informative hub between communities, especially those with limited visibility and means of access. Governance is of Wikimedia type.
    • Technology to use is fixed: plastic bags and ropes resulting from the recycling of coastal waste, filled with sand dredged on a nearby submarine dike. See COL-I-PLAST Project.
    • The relative low cost of building materials and construction makes it possible to envision large works for progressive resistance.... Repairs can come any time on a very focussed spot....
    • Design studies are carried out by engineers, based on documents and information provided by diverse detentors such as public and port authorities or shipliners among many who have the necessary pedological and marine information.
    • For any given local proposal, opportunity of final options is solely evaluated on sustainable development criteria including environmental and societal risks (impact of extended accessibility to the coasts).
    • Communities propose / discuss implementation options, from local waste collection to bag riprap at appropriate locations.

Later, other communities mobilize means required and build, in the proper places, the works according to the standards and prescriptions of the project

The Project follows up the entire life cycle of the work, keeping the local communities at wake on the stakes of maintenance and development.

The project board acts as a delegate and supervisory authority mandated by the communities to implement and develop the entire lifecycle of the works, from feasibility tests decided and/or conducted by the communities, to maintenance operations, to responding to requests by local actors for new solutions.

Project Status: In Progress