Beach Wall Blight

O Hong Kong government, how thou dost love thy concrete.

It loves it so much it wants to construct a 60-metre-long by two-metre-high wall at the back of the beach at Big Wave Bay to prevent sand erosion.

It will come as no surprise that the project was floated by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, an entity infamous for its chronic inability to do much of anything right. This is the same group that prunes trees by lopping off the entire leafy top, leaving a trunk and a few sawn off branches poking into the sky.

Clearly they didn't bother consulting an actual scientist to see if a beach wall is even necessary. But when asked a coastal geomorphologist (an actual scientist) confirmed the wall was a white elephant.

"Without another Hagupit-type event [a destructive typhoon that hit Hong Kong in recent years; ed.], Big Wave Bay beach will likely be able to replenish itself with sand within two years," he said. Hagupit's storm surge occurred at the same time as high waves and during a very high tide ... such combined effects only occurred about once every 100 years.

He also added that an improperly designed and constructed wall might actually increase erosion, citing other instances where 'hard engineering of high-energy beaches has failed'.

Given that statement, letting the LCSD loose with concrete is, without hyperbole, an invitation to utter disaster.

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