BEACHES around the island grew by an average six per cent last year, according to government research which profiled 35 sites in six parishes and compared the figures to those recorded for 2013.

The sites included 15 beaches in Negril, the resort town on the western end of the island which is at the centre of the standoff between Government and stakeholder groups over plans to build a breakwater there. The beach grew by 19.1 per cent, moving from 27.1 metres in 2013 to 32.3 metres in 2014.

Those figures are in tandem with other beaches in Westmoreland, which recorded growth of 23.2 metres, moving from 13.6 metres in 2013 to 16.8 per cent in 2014. They are also consistent with reports from some hoteliers that they have seen two to three metres more sand in the past two years.

The biggest growth was recorded in Clarendon, where the width of the beach in the two sites monitored moved from 22.2 metres in 2013 to 27.9 metres in 2014, or 25.4 per cent. Also improved are five beaches in Portland, where the 21 metres recorded in 2013 changed to 23.2 metres.

The data was contained in the recently published Economic and Social Survey Jamaica 2014, a product of the Planning Institute of Jamaica. The beach statistics were sourced from the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA).

“There was overall accretion of 6.0 per cent in beach width compared with 2013,” the document said.

On the other side of the coin, beaches in Kingston and Trelawny registered net erosion, with Kingston moving from 49.5 metres in 2013 to 43.7 metres last year, while Trelawny fell to 18.9 metres, down from 20.2 metres.

“Kingston and Trelawny were the parishes which experienced net erosion (5.8 metres and 1.3 metres, respectively). Erosion was mild at all the sites which experienced net erosion, the majority of which (72.7 per cent) was in the Palisadoes-Port Royal Protected Area,” the survey said.

The document explained that erosion is considered mild when it is less than 25 per cent relative to the previous reporting period.

Director for Environmental Management and Conservation at NEPA Anthony McKenzie told the Jamaica Observer that the increase in beach width is a direct result of the fact that no hurricane has hit since late-season Sandy in October 2012, and cautioned that it should not be taken to mean that things have returned to normal.

“The beach is gradually accreting. I wouldn’t say it is going back to the pre-2000 state, but the absence of hurricanes over the last three years means it would have recovered to some extent,” he said.

McKenzie explained that in order to assess the health of the beach over a longer term, NEPA uses data from 2000, in the case of Negril, and 2007 for the other sites. When compared to those baseline figures, the island’s beaches are showing a net loss ranging from a high of 33 per cent to 11 per cent.