Beaches are not a permanent feature of a sea landscape. Sand is always getting removed and added back. These changes can often seem drastic during a year.
The drastic changes need not be attributed to illegal sand mining alone but can also be explained by the frequency of storms or other such natural phenomenon.
“If we are to look at this ecologically, is sometime thus happens that a beach erodes since the supply of sand to it cannot keep up with the loss of sand caused due to sea tides,” says VV Mineral, Vaikundarajan.
Sand is transported from beaches not just for mining purposes but also for construction and many other industries also use sand in their work. Sand also gets carried inland via rivers and streams.
The damming on waterways also reduces the supply of sand onto beaches. Sand also gets transported from beach to beach along a shoreline. However, this is mostly a redistribution of sand that happens continuously.
Another increasing reason for sands to be taken away by the sea in large amounts is encroachment on beaches. When encroaching, the sea lashes against people's property which is built to try and stop the encroaching sea.
The use of seawalls, jetties, etc. have a detrimental effect on beaches since the sea water reaches and "bounces" off with more energy and washes off more than normal amounts of sand beach. The same can be considered to be true of the Tuticorin coastline.
