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Romania’s Black Sea coast from space · 43 summers, 1984–2026

Romania’s widened beaches from space: where sand was put and how much of the new beach is left

The beach in central Mamaia seen from space in summer 2026, with the water’s edge of summer 2020 drawn in white across the middle of today’s beach and the water’s edge of 2026 drawn in orange.
water’s edge in summer 2020, before the sandin summer 2026
Mamaia Centre, summer 2026

Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2026

In the winter of 2020–21 a dredger pumped sand from offshore onto the beach at Mamaia, the resort on the sand bar north of Constanța. By summer 2021 the water’s edge in the middle of the resort had moved about 200 metres out to sea. In five summers the sea has taken back 34 metres. Over the same years, at Mamaia North, the water’s edge moved another 18 metres out: the new beach has not vanished, it has spread.

The water’s edge was measured from orbit every 25 metres of shore, from Corbu to Vama Veche: 2,886 lines drawn at right angles to the shore, on every clear day seen by Sentinel-2 since 2015 and every summer seen by Landsat since 1984. Since 2013 the Romanian state has awarded contracts worth more than 3.1 billion lei, before VAT, for sand and breakwaters. The satellite shows where the sand was put and how much of the new beach was still there in summer 2026.

Find your beach ↓

water’s edge further infurther out than in 1984–93each row: 25 metres of shore · each column: one summer

#From Corbu to Vama Veche, 43 summers

Each row is a 25-metre piece of shore, from Corbu at the top to Vama Veche at the bottom; each column is a summer, from 1984 to 2026. The colour shows where the water’s edge stood that summer against the summers of 1984–93: ochre, further out; blue, further in.

The ochre blocks that start abruptly are the sand fills. The gaps are ports, cliffs without a beach and lines that pass breakwaters.

#The breakwater at Midia

North of Midia port, at Corbu, the water’s edge moved 43 metres out to sea between the mid-1980s and 2009–13. South of the breakwater, at Mamaia Centre, it moved 12 metres inland over the same years.

That fits the JICA study’s explanation: the breakwater stops the sand waves carry from the Danube before it reaches Năvodari and Mamaia. Except that the beach at Corbu grew most 6–10 km north of the breakwater, not right next to it, and its northern end retreated.

#2015: Mamaia South and Tomis

The first stage of the programme put sand on five beaches in 2015, between new or rebuilt breakwaters and groynes. The water’s edge moved 95 metres out at Mamaia South and 115 metres at Tomis; the marine institute’s GPS surveys give 86.4 and 105–118 metres.

Eleven summers later the water’s edge is still there: the beaches are boxed in between breakwaters.

#Mamaia, 2021

Between November 2020 and April 2021, Boskalis’s dredger “Gateway” pumped sand from offshore onto 6.95 km of beach, according to the contractor; the satellite sees the change on 6.7 km and measures 88 hectares of new beach between summer 2020 and summer 2021; in the middle of the resort the water’s edge moved about 200 metres out to sea.

The stated target was a beach 100 metres wide. In places it came out more than twice as wide.

#The centre loses, the north gains

Since summer 2021 the water’s edge at Mamaia Centre has moved 34 metres back, close to what news reports said in autumn 2026 (“no longer 200 metres, but 160”). At Mamaia North, over the same five summers, it moved 18 metres out.

The satellite cannot see sand under water, but one explanation fits: waves move sand along the shore, and at Mamaia, according to the JICA study, more of it northwards than southwards. The new beach is spreading: the centre loses, the northern end gains. The figures are corrected for the movement shared by the untouched beaches.

#Eforie, 2022–2023

At Eforie, sand was pumped from September 2022 to December 2023 into seven beach cells boxed in by new breakwaters. The satellite measures 39 hectares; in summer 2026 there are still 39 hectares.

#Olimp, Neptun, Venus: 2024

Between Neptun and Venus, sand pumping began in June 2024; in January 2025 the contractor announced the Olimp, Jupiter–Neptun and Balta Mangalia lots finished. The satellite measures 62 hectares on the stretches with new sand (5.6 km). After two summers the water’s edge is still there; it is too early to say more.

#Costinești and Saturn: building sites

At Costinești, by summer 2026 sand shows on only 1.1 km: 8.9 hectares of the 26–27 announced. At Saturn, pumping began in September 2026. On the images of 3, 5 and 15 October the water’s edge stood 0, 16 and 36 metres further out than in summer, on the 15 measurable lines: the beach was growing as the works went on.

#The beaches without new sand

Vama Veche is not in the programme. At 2 Mai a fill was planned for autumn 2026; it does not show on the images up to 15 October. The water’s edge of 2009–13 stood 11 metres and 7 metres further in there than in the mid-1980s, close to how much the movement shared by the unfilled beaches varied between 2016 and 2026: 11 metres.

#Your beach, your summer

Pick a beach and the summer you first went there. The satellite shows that summer’s water’s edge (white), the summer of 2026 (orange) and the summers of 1984–93 (dotted). On a phone, drag the picture sideways to walk along the beach.

From 2016 the picture is from Sentinel-2 (10-metre pixels). For older summers the line is measured on Landsat images and the background is the Landsat image of the nearest earlier year among 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2014: 30-metre pixels, so blurrier.

#Contract values set against the new beach measured

The values are those of the contracts published in Romania’s public procurement system (SEAP), without VAT, including the additional works. They cover design, breakwaters, groynes and the sand. The hectares are those measured from orbit: the area between the water’s edge of the summer before the fill and that of the first summer after (at Costinești, where the works are unfinished, summer 2026: the ratio there is not a final cost).

BeachesPhase, year of the sandContractorContracts (lei, ex. VAT)New beach measuredIn summer 2026Lei per m² of new beach
Mamaia Sud, Tomis, Eforie NordI · 2015Porr–Franco Giuseppe–Dinamica; Van Oord–SCT469 million lei48 hectares *54 hectares–
Mamaia (Centre, North)II, lot 2 · 2020–21Boskalis196 million lei88 hectares86 hectares224
EforieII, lot 5 · 2022–23Van Oord454 million lei39 hectares39 hectares1,168
Olimp, Neptun–Jupiter, Venus–AuroraII, lots 7–9 · 2024Van Oord950 million lei62 hectares60 hectares1,522
CostineștiII, lot 6 · 2025–Van Oord391 million lei8.9 hectares8.9 hectares4,394

* Measured on the lines with clear Landsat images in the summers of 2013–14; at Eforie Nord, only on 22 of 91 lines, so no lei per square metre is given for phase I.

Mamaia got sand without new breakwaters, only a lengthened groyne: its hectare of beach came out cheapest. At Eforie and at Olimp–Venus the contracts included breakwaters. The contractor says it built nine kilometres of them at Olimp, Jupiter–Neptun and Balta Mangalia. There a square metre of new beach cost five to seven times as much.

The official areas differ from source to source. For Mamaia: 53, 70 or 74.9 hectares; the satellite measures 88 hectares over 6.7 km. For Eforie: 23, 33 or 50 hectares; the satellite measures 39 hectares. The sources give areas for different dates and stretches without saying how they were measured; the satellite measures the area between two water’s edges.

#Why the sand leaves the beaches that were not filled

The beaches of Mamaia and Năvodari used to be fed by sand that waves carried along the shore from the Danube. The Japanese aid agency’s 2007 study (JICA), the European EUROSION report and Romania’s National Institute for Marine Research blamed its decline first of all on the northern breakwater of Midia port, extended from 1977 to a depth of 10 metres: it stops the sand before it reaches Năvodari and Mamaia. The dams on the Danube, which hold back much of the river’s sediment, make the shortage worse.

The satellite sees both sides of that breakwater. At Corbu, north of Midia, the water’s edge moved 43 metres out to sea between the mid-1980s and 2009–13, most of all 6–10 km from the breakwater; at Mamaia Centre, to the south, it moved 12 metres inland over the same years. The images do not show where Corbu’s sand came from, but the contrast is the one the studies’ explanation leads one to expect.

The sand put on Mamaia in 2021 is not the old sand. The marine institute’s samples from 2017 and 2021, at Mamaia Centre and North, show the mean grain size on the dry beach rising from 0.13–0.35 millimetres to 0.6–1.02 millimetres, with much broken shell. Coarser sand stays put better, but it makes the sea floor drop away faster: the authors write of “a sharp slope of the submerged beach”.

#Every beach

For each beach: how far the water’s edge moved before the recent fills (the summers of 2009–13 against 1984–88, from Landsat; at Mamaia South this includes the sand pumped from Lake Siutghiol in 1989–90) and from 2016 to 2026 (Sentinel-2). The figures since 2016 are corrected for the movement shared by the unfilled beaches at Corbu, Tuzla and Vama Veche. “Năvodari” is the stretch north of Mamaia North; the part of Năvodari beach next to Mamaia got sand with the Mamaia lot.

BeachKm of coastFilledWater’s edge 2009–13 vs 1984–88Water’s edge 2026 vs 2016
Corbu14.3–+43 m+8 m
Năvodari3.9–+15 m+0 m
Mamaia North4.02020–21+4 m+76 m
Mamaia Centre3.02020–21−12 m+159 m
Mamaia South2.72015+17 m−8 m
Constanța (Tomis)4.22014–15+3 m−3 m
Agigea1.02023−3 m+12 m
Eforie Nord3.42015, 2022–23−5 m+6 m
Eforie Sud4.72022–23+2 m+86 m
Tuzla2.5–+2 m−9 m
Costinești6.62025–26 (partly)−4 m−2 m
Olimp5.32024−1 m+58 m
Neptun and Jupiter2.52024−11 m+77 m
Cap Aurora and Venus3.92024−16 m+109 m
Saturn1.0from Sept 2026+4 m+18 m
Mangalia1.6–−2 m−5 m
2 Mai1.7–−11 m+0 m
Vama Veche2.4–−7 m−3 m

#How the water’s edge was measured

On the OpenStreetMap shoreline, 2,886 lines were drawn at right angles to the shore, one every 25 metres, on every beach from Corbu to Vama Veche (94.6 km of coast; ports and cliffs without a beach stay blank). On each line, in each image, the water’s edge is where an index that tells water from land (MNDWI, from the green and short-wave infrared bands) crosses that image’s own threshold, read to less than a pixel. Lines that pass groynes, breakwaters or quays (462) are left out of every figure.

Sentinel-2 (10-metre pixels) gave 498 measured days, from August 2015 to 25 October 2026; Landsat (30-metre pixels), the summers of 1984–2026. Each summer is the median of the clear days of June–September, so one day’s waves and wind drop out. The Black Sea has almost no tide, but wind and waves move the water’s edge from day to day.

How well the measurement repeats: on days when the same scene appears on two neighbouring Sentinel-2 tiles (364 days), the two measurements differ by at most 1.2 metres on half the lines and at most 6.2 metres on nine in ten. In the same summer, Landsat and Sentinel-2 differ by at most 4 metres on half the lines and at most 11 on nine in ten. The movement shared by the unfilled beaches at Corbu, Tuzla and Vama Veche varied by 11 metres between 2016 and 2026; a smaller change is treated as “in place”. These comparisons show how well the measurements agree with each other; the ground surveys below show how close they come to the beach itself.

Checked against ground surveys: for the 2015 fill, the marine institute measured with GPS a beach widening of 86.4 metres at Mamaia South, 105–118 metres at Tomis and 122.4 metres at Eforie Nord; the satellite gives 95 metres, 115 metres and 129 metres (at Eforie Nord, on 22 lines).

The satellite sees the water’s edge, not the volume of sand: a beach can lose sand under water without its water’s edge moving. “In place” here means the water’s edge is where the fill left it. The southern beaches have had only two summers since their fill; it is too early for a verdict.

#Sources