It was clear after a series of storms hit Maine’s coast last winter that they took away lots of sand from the state’s beaches.
Now, state officials have gathered the data — and it turns out the erosion was record-breaking.
While sand dunes only make up about 2 percent of Maine’s rocky coast, they’re an essential part of some of the state’s most popular summer destinations, including Popham Beach and Reid State Park in the midcoast, as well as numerous southern Maine communities.
Dunes act as natural barriers between communities and the ocean, but when they’re washed away by intense storms, homes, businesses and infrastructure near the shore are left more vulnerable to flooding and other damage.
After an intern at the Maine Geological Survey surveyed Maine’s 42 sandy beaches last summer — looking for the average distance between dunes and the shoreline at each beach — the agency recently released her findings through its online beach mapping program.
They show that from 2023 to 2024, the state’s dunes receded an average of 26 feet. Popham Beach was among the hardest-hit areas, seeing erosion of up to 124 feet in places and an average loss of 94 feet. A section of Reid State Park lost an average of 54 feet.
Peter Slovinsky, a coastal geologist with the Maine Geological Survey, said some of the erosion was record-breaking.
“It was a pretty unique winter in the fact that we had a really large storm in December and then two record-setting storms in January,” he said. “It was kind of like the one-two-three punch for our beaches and dunes this year.”
Slovinsky noted that the seasonal cycle that always carries sand away from Maine’s beaches during the rougher weather of winter also brings sand back to those beaches during the calmer period of summer.
But it can take several seasons for dunes to fully return, as it takes time for dune grass to grow back and anchor the newly deposited sand.
To speed up this process, state officials received about 100 applications this year for beach scraping, in which municipalities push sand from beaches to the base of dunes to help support them. While it’s a short-term solution, it can help, Slovinsky said. Some municipalities brought in additional sand from gravel pits and other sources to beef up their beaches.
“When we’re dealing with something that’s been punched several times in the gut, it’s good to give it a helping hand,” he said. “The places that did that are set up a little bit better going into the winter than a lot of places that didn’t do anything.”
There are several other projects happening along the coast to help preserve and rebuild dunes. At Popham Beach, officials have deposited holiday trees to help rebuild dunes. That project has added about 125 feet of dune, Slovinsky said. He is now hoping to do a similar project at Reid State Park.
However, while it’s encouraging that sand returned to beaches this summer, Slovinsky cautioned that dunes won’t have enough time to heal if the state gets battered by intense storms each year.
In that case, Maine’s beaches will need even more human intervention to rebuild.
“The management of these systems by people definitely helps in terms of the recovery of these systems,” Slovinsky said. “When we integrate the use of something like Christmas trees or driftwood in certain projects, we can kind of help trap sand faster and help these systems recover faster.”
