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'DROP IN THE OCEAN'
To fight erosion, APAL is building walls to protect the coastline from the waves and has sourced 1 million cubic metres of sand from a nearby sand quarry.
But rebuilding beaches requires a very specific type of sand, according to its technical director, Mohamed Ali Torki.
Only two beaches have so far been restored, yet reserves are already running low, and last August APAL launched a study to identify sand reserves in the sea.
"For the sand to be stable, it needs to be quartz, not carbon, of a certain granulometry, (and) desert sand is worth nothing because (the grains are) round, not angular," said Torki, explaining that it would wash away immediately.
The sand also has to be white, he said - local people insist on that.
Until now, APAL has protected just 32 km of coast. Some hotel owners have taken it on themselves to protect their own beaches, but intervening on one section of is not effective, said Torki.
"It is like a drop in the ocean," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The erosion is bad news for tourism, which accounts for 8% of Tunisia's gross domestic product and was hit by a militant attack targeting tourists that killed dozens of people in 2015.
The rate of increase has accelerated dramatically, from an average 0.7 mm (0.03 inches) per year between 1945 and 2000, to 3mm per year over the last 20 years, according to Semia Cherif, a professor at the University of Tunis.
But there is more to coastal erosion than sea level rise.
Essam Heggy, who has researched the impact of erosion on Hammamet Bay, said the very existence of tourist resorts in the area was accelerating the process.
That is because buildings physically prevent the sediment that helps form strong beaches from reaching the shore, making them less resilient.
That could lead to "an irreversible chain of reactions that can degrade groundwater and agriculture deep inland, impacting food security and employment," said Heggy.
His research shows the coastline of Hammamet Bay is retreating far faster than the global average - between 1.3 and 5.6 metres a year between 1952 and 2018.
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