Beach nourishment is a “soft engineering” solution to protect sandy shorelines from erosion. It can be defined as a process of mechanically placing sand directly on an eroding beach to increase its recreational value and to counteract coastal erosion. This method has been used globally for many decades and it is also gaining attention in various locations and municipalities in southern Sweden as a nature-based solution to coastal erosion. It is sometimes considered a primary solution with few negative impacts on the environment.

However, there is still little known about the environmental impacts from beach nourishment projects. It is important to understand biological effects, both negative and positive, that might occur at both extraction and nourishment sites, because in the future beach nourishment might potentially be used more widely in Sweden as a mitigation strategy for coastal erosion. The objectives of this report were to present an overview of Swedish beach ecosystems and provide information on current trends, future scenarios, and history of beach nourishment in Sweden.