Beach Recovery

Beach Recovery Foundation

Restore your Shore

Since 2002, Beach Recovery has worked to prove that an eroding shoreline can be rebuilt by working with the water instead of against it. The engineering is now carried forward by Basalt International. What remains here is the rest of the work: the art the structures carry, the films that document what returns, and the record of twenty years of shoreline.

See the recordSupport the work
Three-panel record of one shoreline: crews installing early geotextile tubes along a severely eroded beach backed by riprap and a bluff-top house in 2000; the same stretch in 2003 with a wide sand beach and dune grass returning; and the same view in 2017 with established vegetation across the restored profile.
Circa 2000, 2003 and 2017. Accretion and volume figures [TBD] pending verified survey data.

The record

One shoreline, documented over seventeen years

An early version of the beach recovery system was deployed circa 2000 on a coastline in severe retreat. By circa 2003 the pilot stood as a proof of concept for geotextile containment, and the same view was documented again circa 2017.

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The founder

Gregory Sarno

Gregory Sarno founded Beach Recovery in 2002 after years spent learning how land is reclaimed from the sea, and incorporated the company in 2004. He spent the early years on the water, installing and then photographing the same stretches of coast season after season, because the argument he wanted to make could only be made with dated evidence. A car crash in 2008 halted the field work and changed the shape of the organisation: an art gallery opened and a foundation was set up. In January 2016 he addressed the United Nations on beach erosion. In 2025 the engineering passed to Basalt International, where he is President, Shoreline Recovery & Protection Systems.

Read the full story

The Foundation

The work, and the record of it

  • Gallery

    Photographs, time-lapse and the 2016 address at the United Nations.

  • Collaborating Artists

    Art into the Sea: canvases carried by the nearshore structures.

  • News

    Dated announcements, kept as they were made.

  • Team Beach

    The people behind the Foundation's field and art work.

Shoreline projects

Beach Recovery no longer provides shoreline recovery services. The Beach Recovery System is engineered and installed by Basalt International, an independent company. All enquiries about site assessment, design or installation should be directed to them.

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