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Beach wrack of the Baltic Sea – public acceptance and implications for beach management

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Abstract

Beach wrack is a specific challenge for coastal communities around the Baltic Sea region. It is often removed from sandy tourist beaches as part of municipal beach cleaning operations. Some local authorities remove even the smallest amounts of beach wrack to meet perceived public demand for ‘cleaned’ beaches with little regard for any environmental consequences. This research explores the public opinion of beach wrack to determine whether there is, in fact, a demand for its ‘total’ removal from sandy tourist beaches. It explores how the acceptance levels of tourists and residents change depending on the amount of beach wrack present and looks at how people’s knowledge of beach wrack and their experience influences behaviour. For this study, over 700 members of the public were interviewed at sites in 5 different countries across the region. The interviews took place on or near regularly ‘cleaned’ tourist beaches where beach wrack is commonplace. The questions focused on the public’s attitudes towards the aesthetics of different beach wrack amounts. The study shows that while beach wrack does not positively affect most people’s beach experience, small quantities of beach wrack are tolerated. Public perception of beach wrack differs per country, and acceptance of certain amounts is linked to direct, visual, and practical experience. Beach managers can move towards a more sustainable beach wrack policy by desensitising beachgoers to small, unproblematic amounts of beach wrack and by helping to build public knowledge about the important ecosystem services that beach wrack provides.

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Notes

  1. In the context of this paper, t test refers to t tests with equal variances with a 95% confidence interval.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Margaux Janin for her background research. Thanks also to Jens Almqvist, Caroline Danielsson, Diana Danilda; Krinova Incubator & Science Park, Sweden — Boris V. Chubarenko, Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of Russian Academy of Sciences · Atlantic Branch, Kaliningrad Region — Sara Guizani, Municipality of Køge, Denmark — Marcin Żuchowski, The Association of Polish Communes, Poland, with support from Sabina Styn, Sub-Inspector for International Cooperation and Customers, Puck City Commune, for their local support at the study sites.

Funding

Partial financial support was received from the EU Baltic Sea Region Interreg Program within the framework of the project ‘Conversion of a Nuisance to a Resource and Asset’ (CONTRA) (#R090, 2018–2021).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. EUCC – The Coastal Union Germany, Friedrich-Barnewitz-Str. 3, 18119, Rostock – Warnemünde, Germany

    Jane Hofmann & Nardine Stybel

  2. Independent Researcher, Vicenza, Italy

    Marco Lovato

  3. Dods EU Political Intelligence, Brussels, Belgium

    Matej Banovec

Authors
  1. Jane Hofmann
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  2. Nardine Stybel
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  3. Marco Lovato
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  4. Matej Banovec
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Contributions

JH developed the article concept and did most of the article writing. ML took care of the data analysis and commented on the paper. MB supported the writing and the analysis. NS supported the article’s concept development, writing, and analysis. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jane Hofmann.

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Hofmann, J., Stybel, N., Lovato, M. et al. Beach wrack of the Baltic Sea – public acceptance and implications for beach management. J Coast Conserv 28, 3 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11852-023-00995-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11852-023-00995-3

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