This story initially appeared on Grist and is a part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

When governments discover themselves preventing the specter of coastal erosion, their default response tends to be fairly easy: If sand is disappearing from a seashore, they pump in additional sand to interchange it. This technique, often known as “beach nourishment,” has turn into a cornerstone of coastal defenses all over the world, complementing arduous constructions like sea partitions. North Carolina, for example, has dumped greater than 100 million tons of sand onto its seashores over the previous 30 years, at a value of greater than $1 billion.

The downside with seashore nourishment is apparent. If you dump sand on an eroding seashore, it’s solely a matter of time earlier than that new sand erodes. Then you must do it over again.

Beach nourishment tasks are alleged to final for round 5 years, however they usually disappear quicker than anticipated. Moreover, an enormous coastal storm can wipe them out in a single evening. And the prices are staggering: Dragging in new sand requires leasing and working large diesel dredge boats. Only the wealthiest areas can afford to do it 12 months after 12 months.

Now, after a long time of reliance on repeated seashore nourishment, a brand new technique for managing erosion is displaying up on coastlines all over the world. It’s referred to as the “sand motor,” and it comes from the Netherlands, a low-lying nation with centuries of expertise in coastal safety.

A “sand motor” isn’t an precise motor—it’s a sculpted panorama that works with nature moderately than in opposition to it. Instead of rebuilding a seashore with a fair line of latest sand, engineers prolong one part of the shoreline out into the ocean at an angle.. Over time, the pure wave motion of the ocean acts as a “motor” that pushes the sand from this protruding landmass out alongside the remainder of the pure shoreline, spreading it down the shoreline for miles.

While sand motors require far more upfront funding than regular seashore nourishment—and plenty of occasions extra sand—in addition they defend extra land and final for much longer. Developed nations such because the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are turning to those megaprojects as a substitute for repeated nourishment, and the World Bank is financing a sand motor in West Africa as a part of a billion-dollar adaptation program meant to combat sea-level rise. But these large tasks solely work in areas the place erosion shouldn’t be but at a essential stage. That means they’re unlikely to point out up within the United States, the place many coastal areas are already on the purpose of disappearing altogether.

The concept for the venture got here from a Dutch professor named Marcel Stive, who had watched with frustration as his nation’s authorities spent billions to nourish the identical coastal areas again and again as sea ranges stored rising. Stive offered the thought to the federal government, which employed a big dredging firm referred to as Boskalis to construct a prototype on the shoreline south of The Hague.

Even this experimental venture, which the Dutch name “de Zandmotor,” was an unprecedented enterprise. Boskalis dredged up round 28 million cubic yards of sand from the ocean ground—greater than the Netherlands makes use of on nourishment tasks nationwide in a given 12 months. Engineers then sculpted the sand right into a hook that curved eastward along the shore, guaranteeing that waves would push the sand northeast towards seashores close to The Hague. They additionally created a lagoon in the course of the sand construction in order that locals wouldn’t need to stroll for nearly a mile to get to the water. In the years since Boskalis completed building on the $50 million venture, the hook of sand has flattened out, virtually the way in which a wave breaks because it reaches the shore.