Funding to preserve Israel's coastline

FUNDING to preserve Israel's coastline:

Shoring up Israel’s treasure-rich coastline

By Karin Kloosterman (ISRAEL21c)
June 05, 2011

An infusion of governmental funds aims to keep natural and human occurrences from washing ancient artifacts out to sea.

No one knows when she lost her head or arm, but the 1,500-year-old sculpture believed to depict the Roman goddess Aphrodite rolled out into the Mediterranean Sea last December, looking as fresh as the day she was made. Her discovery after falling out from an escarpment onto the coast of Ashkelon, a southern Israeli city near the Gaza Strip, highlights Israel's growing need to protect its eroding coastline.

A new government initiative worth $135 million will turn about 10 miles of stretches of the Israeli coast into a series of reinforcements and public parks to be enjoyed by locals and tourists. Some of the parks will run through archeological sites of interest.

Geological archeologist Dr. Beverly Goodman, from the University of Haifa's Leon Charney School of Marine Sciences, stands to receive some of the much-needed funds for her research on coastal tsunamis and underwater geo-archeological surveying.

She tells ISRAEL21c that coastal protection is a social, cultural, economic and environmental imperative. "The coastal area is extremely important because so many infrastructure facilities lie on the world's coastlines," she says, "whether it's a power station; a cosmopolitan area like Tel Aviv, which includes hotels and tourist sites; and, of course, nature areas. These are all things that rely on the coastline being protected, and kept stable and somewhat reliable."

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The story of the statue discovered on the coast of Ashkelon last year was noted here.