Full Length Research Paper

Geomorphology and climate conditions that determine sedimentation in Mamaia bay

Marian Marin¹, Adrian Tişcovschi¹*, Gabriela Manea¹ and Danut Diaconeasa²

¹Faculty of Geography, University of Bucharest, Romania.

²National Institute of Marine Research and Development "Grigore Antipa", Constanta, Romania

*Corresponding author. E-mail: tiscovschi@yahoo.com.

Accepted 21 February, 2011.

Abstract

The beach evolving in the Mamaia sea area represents a recent geological deposit, which was built mainly from the contribution of north-south oriented long shore terrigenous sediments, but also from biogenic sediments, which have been transported towards the beach, mostly through the shore transverse transport (onshore-offshore). Between 1977 and 1987, several project proposals for the protection of the entire touristic Mamaia beach were analyzed. Several different concepts were presented, due to the fact that each interpretation had to start with the new data on the erosion state and each solution readjustment added new dimensions to the construction site and also to the required financial investments. Eventually, the decision was to start with a series of processes which involved longitudinal-type protection works, known to offer great efficiency on the dissipation of the energy flux propagated with each wave, and also the dam-chain type which is parallel to the shore. At the end of 1988, following some severe storms, the processes for the Mamaia resort coastal protection were initiated under a state of urgency. These measures represented the fourth draft developed over a period of ten years and demanded the build of six longitudinal dikes out of the nine required by the initially presented protection solution.

Key words: Coastal processes, coastal hydro-technical structures, beach, sedimentation, sand dunes.