The wind lashes Sacalin Island, at the mouth of the Danube, filling the air with foam and grains of sand. Objects washed up by storm surges and the mouth of Europe’s great river lie on the beach. Some twisted, charred trunks jut out to sea, battered by the waves.

"Thirty years ago, this was a living forest; the coastline was over 200 meters ahead," Professor Florin Tătui of the University of Bucharest explains to his students who have come by boat, braving the stormy weather, to study the evolution of the coastline.

Far south, in the seaside resort of Costinești, enormous dredgers dump tons of water and sand on the shore, which is quickly scattered by bulldozers. The iconic wreck of the Evangelia, beached for half a century, forms the backdrop.
From the wild Delta to the hotel-lined southern shores, the 250 kilometers of Black Sea coastline couldn’t be more different. Only one thing unites them: they are undergoing severe erosion. 

The changing delta

The Danube flows into the Black Sea, dividing into three large arms: Chilia, shared with Ukraine; Sulina, the central arm; and Sfântu Gheorghe, the southernmost, at the end of which stands the eponymous village, once a fishing village but now also a tourist destination.

In between, countless meanders and branches, marshes with priceless biodiversity, and saltwater lagoons populated by pelicans. Further out, islands and thin strips of sand stretch into the sea: over 160 kilometers of ever-changing coastline.
Among these is Sacalin, about ten kilometers long, running parallel to the coast, which encloses a lagoon. It is a strict nature reserve; Professor Tătui can only access it with a special permit for study purposes. Its sands come from the northernmost mouths of the river, from where they are transported by the currents. "Sometimes storms manage to break the island, and the open sea flows directly into the lagoon," he explains. The last time this happened was in 2012. "These are natural phenomena: the life of a delta is full of transformations."

What’s less natural is that today the Danube carries only a third of the sediment it once did. The sediment is retained by numerous dams built over the last century, while many other management projects alter its behavior.
Today, 55% of the water flows from the northernmost branch, Chilia. At the ends of the central branch, Sulina, straightened for navigation since the 19th century, long estuary piers jut out into the sea for kilometers, preventing the currents from distributing the sand that continues to arrive along the coast.

The fact that the channel is continuously dredged to maintain a safe depth for navigation (about 7 meters), Tătui explains, also causes sediments "to reach the open sea at a depth of about 10 meters, too shallow for the waves to rework them."
This is accompanied by the rising sea level (15 centimeters in the last fifty years) due to climate change, a phenomenon common throughout the Black Sea. In the Delta, due to the combined effect of subsidence (the lowering of the ground due to compaction), this phenomenon is proceeding at twice the rate: about 4 millimeters per year. The result is that 65% of the delta’s coastline is eroding, with peaks of 8 meters per year, sometimes more.

Coastal erosion is a phenomenon common to many European river deltas and beyond, but on the Danube, a UNESCO World Heritage Site due to its exceptional ecological importance, it deserves particular attention. The phenomenon has been known for years, but so far large-scale interventions have been avoided. Tătui and his colleagues are working on a European project, Delta-Hub , which involves a series of hydrodynamic studies that should help the authorities address the issue.

It’s not too early, however, for some considerations. "Working on the dams seems unrealistic at the moment, but something could be done to allow the free circulation of sediment. By creating a bypass through the estuary jetties, without demolishing them but with piping and pump systems," he explains, "the sand could flow again. Furthermore, the Sulina Canal should be worked on so that the river discharges sediment within a depth of 5 meters instead of 10. The work could be expensive, but the benefits would certainly be much greater."

The tamed coastline

With its eight kilometers of once-golden sand, stretching between Lake Siutghiol and the northern neighborhoods of Constanta, Mamaia is perhaps Romania’s most famous beach. Today, its recently restored sand has turned black and is full of sharp shell fragments that make walking barefoot almost impossible.
The only thing that reminds one of the Delta, nearby as the crow flies, is the wind. Otherwise, from here to the Bulgarian border, the coastline of the Dobruja region is much more human-sized, for better or worse: half a succession of green hills, coastal lagoons, and glimpses of the sea, half of which is a sprawl of carelessly constructed hotels and apartment buildings, breakwaters, and industrial structures.

In this stretch of coast, home to half a million people and home to the country’s fifth-largest city, Constanta, and its gigantic industrial port, coastal erosion is a major problem. Both for the maintenance of the many coastal structures and for seaside tourism, a key factor in the region’s economy.This is where efforts to combat the phenomenon have focused since the communist era. During that period, these projects invariably included enormous breakwaters and artificial reefs that rendered the landscape completely artificial. Furthermore, by impeding the circulation of currents, they perhaps protected individual stretches of coastline, but ultimately left the overall situation unchanged, if not worsened.

In addition to rising sea levels, particularly violent storms along this stretch of coast, and depleted rivers, Tătui explains that another factor impacts this area: port development. Especially that of Constanta, which extends nine kilometers in length and juts out into the sea for another five, disrupting the flow of currents. Already among the largest in Europe, the infrastructure is undergoing further development since the war in Ukraine rendered the port of Odessa almost unusable. After a decade – the 1990s – in which coastal defense was completely ignored, in the new millennium, new management plans began to emerge, in collaboration with Europe and the international scientific community.

Between 2011 and 2012, a national strategic plan was drawn up, the result of constructive discussions between authorities, scientists, and key stakeholders in the area. The "Master Plan" reflected a new shared approach gaining ground in coastal defense: no longer rigid and impactful structures, unless strictly necessary, but "nature-based solutions" that favored beach nourishment with sand as similar as possible to the original, positioned so that the currents would distribute it, recreating a dynamic balance.

This is the case, for example, of the new "Sea Park" in Rimini, described by Elisabetta Tola and Marco Boscolo in their reportage for Facta, with beaches facing a problem similar to that of the Black Sea. With this spirit, a first major phase of interventions was carried out, with a total cost of 170 million Euros. The beaches of Constanta (Tomis, near the center, and the southern sector of Mamaia), Eforie, and other stretches of coast were expanded in this way by a total of 60 hectares.

The second phase: the harnessed sea

At the end of spring, the strip of sand and low cliffs in the town of Costinești, a handful of kilometers south of Constanta, is a fully fenced-off construction site, bustling with activity ahead of the upcoming summer. Dozens of workers move quickly in their high-visibility overalls, while bulldozers haul enormous boulders destined to become breakwaters. A transverse breakwater approaches the wreck of the Evangelia, an unmistakable landmark on this stretch of coast.

The second phase of the work, currently nearing completion, is one of the largest infrastructure projects ever undertaken in Romania. With an estimated cost of over 840 million Euros (mostly from Cohesion funds through the Operational Programme for Major Infrastructure), the plan is to widen the eroding beaches by 226 hectares, also building around thirty transverse breakwaters and kilometers of artificial reefs in a dozen locations, from the edge of the Delta to the far south.

The project has sparked bitter controversy from the start. "This isn’t a master plan: they’re repeating the same mistakes made fifty years ago," Tătui blurts out. "And the paradox is that these barriers are often built by the same European companies that, in their own countries, are dismantling those structures." It’s not just many researchers and environmental groups who are crying foul, but also many beachgoers where the work has already been completed. In the northern half of Mamaia, the new sand – dark, coarse, and full of fragments – has made the shoreline steeper and, some say, more dangerous as well as less picturesque.

Since the beach was widened much further than initially planned, rumors quickly spread that the government’s real goal was to legalize some hotels and restaurants built too close to the shoreline.

The controversy reached national prominence when the popular television program România, te iubesc! aired a lengthy investigation into the matter. Apele Române, the government body responsible for the works – contacted thanks to the contribution of the Romanian newspaper PressOne – rejects all criticisms. The "master plan," they write, "provides a framework for action, but does not replace a feasibility study or a technical execution project." 

The decision to opt for more extensive interventions than the "nature-based solutions" initially envisioned is based on doubts about their actual effectiveness over the expected lifespan, at least fifty years: "We cannot embrace certain concepts that, however correct, would force us to rely on unavailable technologies or on financing for which we have no guarantee," the agency writes.

A key aspect, as can be read between the lines, is related to finances rather than engineering: "European funding ends once the project is completed. After that, the costs and operational logistics will be entirely borne by the Romanian state." Therefore, it is essential "that the works continue to function after completion of the works with virtually no further interventions, even in the event of force majeure (war, pandemic, etc.)."

The agency denies, however, that the new works will disrupt the natural balance: "The effects of the transverse barriers and their influence on sea currents are locally limited and have the effect of blocking the lateral transport of sediment to feed the beaches." As for the excessive content of shell fragments, they assure us, "it is a phenomenon which is observed in the early years of the new beaches but then gradually decreases in severity."

While waiting for nature to take its course, the last storms of the season are battering the Black Sea. When summer and the sun arrive, the coast will be a little grayer: be it due to the concrete, the new, very dark sand, or the disappointment of many at a change of pace that was promised, but never actually achieved.

This publication has been produced within the Collaborative and Investigative Journalism Initiative (CIJI ), a project co-funded by the European Commission. The contents of this publication are the sole responsibility of Osservatorio Balcani Caucaso Transeuropa and do not reflect the views of the European Union. Go to the project page