The humble mussel, that much-loved staple of Belgian cuisine, has been deployed by scientists in an innovative attempt to save the country’s storm-battered beaches.

Small artificial reefs of mussels, algae and tube worms have been built off the Belgian coast to test whether eco-friendly barriers can protect Flemish beaches from storms brewing in the North Sea.



A pilot project has been launched near the sea resort of De Panne after Storm Dieter last year caused €20m (£18m) of damage on the coast and removed more than 1m tonnes of sand.

Private companies are working with the Belgian institute for agricultural and fisheries research (ILVO) and Ghent University on the project, entitled Coastbusters.

In a test zone of 100 sq metres at De Panne in west Flanders, one reef will consist of seaweed planted on large textile mats tied to the seabed.

A second method uses tube worms, which anchor their tails to rocks below the surface and secrete a mineral around themselves for protection. The worms will be grouped together to create a worm reef.

But it is the building of a reef of mussels, for which a cord will be fixed under the water, that has really caught the local imagination. It is believed that, in time, the mussels will drop from the wire and lodge themselves to the seabed. Scientists hope that if sufficient mussels attach to each other, their shells will form a natural barrier to the sea’s currents.

Once scientists determine which method works best, a reef stretching a few kilometres will be constructed.

Greet Riebbels of ILVO said: “We have just started and so we don’t have any results yet. The objective is to find out if we can protect our coasts using natural means.

“The private companies are really interested. We have had local storms do a lot of damage to our beaches and that got us to thinking about building natural reefs. Building concrete reefs both costs a lot and isn’t ideal for submarine life. The thinking is that we should try and make nature work for us.”

Storm Dieter dragged sand into the sea and created new cliffs up to two metres high when it struck in January 2016. Some beaches were declared unsafe and closed to the public.

There is increasing concern over the risk that climate change poses to the Flemish coastline. Last year the Flemish secretary of state for the North Sea, Philippe De Backer, launched a study to examine whether an island in the North Sea could protect Flanders in the long run against rising sea levels and the increased prevalence of major storms. The island would cover a surface of 40 hectares and be situated 1.2km off the coastline.

Moules frites is regarded as a Belgian national dish, though many of the mussels used in local dishes are farmed in nearby Zeeland, in the Netherlands, or imported from further afield. Recent studies have even suggested that wild mussels on the Belgian coast have relatively high concentrations of potentially harmful bacteria.