Revitalising the Riviera of Senegal

Saly in Senegal used to be one of the most popular touristic hotspots of this West African country. Unfortunately, the coastal community suffered from rising sea levels and other negative effects of accelerated climate change.

To revitalise Saly’s fragile local economy and prevent flood damage, the World Bank financed a coastal protection scheme. Van Oord was selected to build groynes and detached breakwaters over a distance of 4.5 kilometres.

These structures stop the currents and waves from battering the coastline and help to protect the land against rising sea levels.

When Van Oord arrived in the area, not many traces were left of the once buzzing holiday destination. The beach was gone, hotels had to use rocks and sand bags to protect themselves against the sea and tourists stayed away.

Tourism is the main source of income for its 20,000 inhabitants and therefore its decline due to climate change had disastrous economic consequences.

In addition, human interventions such as the construction of a small craft harbour and groynes upstream of the beaches disturbed the longshore sand transport and deposit downstream along Saly’s coast.

Van Oord was called in to reinforce the coastline and revitalise the area.

The Saly coastal development program aims to protect people, houses, economic and cultural infrastructure in the region against coastal erosion.

“During the project, we made sure local stakeholders were involved. We kept the local community informed and we employed local people, so that about 40% of the workforce was Senegalese,” said Van Oord.

Once the company started the works, locals immediately began using the beach, entrepreneurs set up small businesses again, hundreds of children could safely play on the beach and some even saw a beach for the first time in their lives, said the Dutch giant.

This June, International Association of Dredging Companies (IADC) organised their third Meet the Experts webinar.

In this webinar, the topic of sustainability in dredging was linked to the Saly Coastal Protection Project.

The project consisted of the construction of 12 detached parallel breakwaters and a number of small groynes.

After construction of the breakwaters and groynes, the beach was nourished with approximately 600.000m3 of sand.

The rocks were sourced from a local quarry and installed using dry earth moving equipment.

“We contracted a quarry nearby to deliver more than 300,000 tonnes of rock for these constructions. The local economy benefited by this way of working,” said Regional Manager, Maarten Meeder.

The sand was dredged in an offshore borrow area with the trailing suction hopper dredger (TSHD) Dravo Costa Dorada and pumped ashore through a 2.5-kilometre-long floating pipeline.

This reinforcement project was essential to improving the quality of life for the inhabitants and the local community.