When you walk along Pattaya bay beach area, it is easy to see how Pattaya Beach is eroding away, especially in the north section. The beach area is more narrow and across from the Holiday Inn the water is almost up to the row of palm trees. Researchers from Chulalongkor University have done a study and said the beach \ will erode away within 5 years. A professor from the university states that one of the solutions would be to haul in 200,000 cubic meters of sand, with another round of filling another 15 years. To me that does not sound like a sound proposal. One is just delaying the problem. Building a retaining wall or dredging the bay sounds like a better solution but I am not an expert. An article in one of the local newspapers says that a budget would need to be approved by the "cabinet" (is that Pattaya?) I am afraid if it is up to the city authorities nothing will be done or the money that is budgeted for the erosion will "disappear" and the cost will just be 3... 4 times than what it should be. --Look at Jomtien Road. It would have been cheaper to build it in Europe (and they do not have cheap labor).

It's not only Pattya beach....Wongamat is in a bad way too. The erosion there has damaged the path and the pipes (sewage??) underneath. There is liquids oozing out of the cracks. Lovely postcard pics for the Russians to take home with them. Considering Russians are the "new" target for tourism and the fact that they are in Wongamat in huge groups, Pattaya city ought to be thoroughly ashamed for allowing a picturesque beach to degenerate to such a degree.

I think it's fitting.

Pattaya is a sewer. May as well erode the beach and let everyone see the sewage leak into the water.

A professor from the university states that one of the solutions would be to haul in 200,000 cubic meters of sand, with another round of filling another 15 years.

I wonder if one of his relatives happens to own a sand quarry ?/

Simple solution would be to use dredgers to excavate sand from the bay and pipe it back to the beach, not exactly rocket science, they created whole "continents" in Dubai with that method, so why would they need to "haul in" 200,000 cube of sand, yeah yeah i know, somebody's brother's, uncle's sister that happens to work in the government..............

A professor from the university states that one of the solutions would be to haul in 200,000 cubic meters of sand, with another round of filling another 15 years.

I wonder if one of his relatives happens to own a sand quarry ?/

Simple solution would be to use dredgers to excavate sand from the bay and pipe it back to the beach, not exactly rocket science, they created whole "continents" in Dubai with that method, so why would they need to "haul in" 200,000 cube of sand, yeah yeah i know, somebody's brother's, uncle's sister that happens to work in the government..............

it is less than five years ago that the beach reclaiming exercise was done on Pattaya beach. it dragged on for weeks with trucks and machine cluttering the beach area. I ain't no professor so were he gets his 15 year cycle from makes one wonder at his expertise.

I wonder how many generations will pass by before the Thai's swallow their pride (lloss of face syndrome) and hire in experts who can sort out the multitude of problems with the Pattaya infrastructure.

As the saying go's TIT and thankfully there are loads of positive good things to keep one stimulated around to deaden the frustration. Chang, Singha., leo to name a few.

In Melbourne, they regularly dredge an area to dump the sand on the beach. Erosion is either natural, or caused by development (ie retaining walls.).

it must be a slow news day

it made the front page of Yahoo USA

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110201/lf_nm_life/us_thailand_beach

A good thing might come from it "good bye to the jet ski"

A good thing might come from it "good bye to the jet ski"

and good bye LB's

I was up near the Dusit today and have never seen such erosion in 10 years.

There was a lot of recent, very heavy sandbagging,like a stockade in some places, many tree roots exposed, and no room for deck chairs or any beach activity at all in certain areas (a sure sign of problems if you can't stick an umbrella in the ground and shaft a few jet ski mugs).

Clearly there is a big erosion problem there, but expensively putting down more sand is not the answer.

I'm no expert but as has been said, it's just the ocean currents "reclaiming" what was lost to development years ago. At one time, wasn't the Pattaya shoreline somewhere up as far as 2nd or 3rd roads and all the land below that built on landfill?

I think Neptune wants his ocean back and there is no way to hold back these natural forces. Pattaya isn't Dubai and there isn't money to constantly replace sand that nature reclaims 24/7.

The 129.35 million baht that was spend on (on again-off again) pedistrain crossing lights in the city should have been spent on saving the beach instead.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110201/lf_nm_life/us_thailand_beach

The sooner the beach vanishes, and there is no excuse for the "family tourists" to visit Pattaya the better.

Then we can get back to what Pattaya really is- "Fun City" for grown ups.

The sooner the beach vanishes, and there is no excuse for the "family tourists" to visit Pattaya the better.

Then we can get back to what Pattaya really is- "Fun City" for grown ups.

The beach is eroding, in large part, because they (Pattaya govt. officials) decided to cut down all of the shade (lom) trees that were holding the sand in and preventing erosion.

The shade trees they cut down have a massive and intricate root system and grow well in sandy soil.

After cutting down huge numbers of shade trees, they replaced them with palm trees. Palm trees are nice to look at but have a very small root system and do not hold in the sand like the shade trees.

This happened back in 2003, if memory serves. After that, the pace of erosion increased rapidly.