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WITH more than 80 per cent of Australia’s population living within the coastal zone of the country, coastal erosion can have a massive impact on the lives of locals.
Towns such as Shoalhaven Heads have first-hand experience of the issue of erosion. In 1977 locals came very close to losing the newly built $100,000 Surf Club building when high tides came within metres of the front door.
Now the Australian Research Council, directed by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Climate Change, is running a three-year study into the monitoring and forecasting for coastal erosion. One of the remote sites chosen for the $2.5 million study is Seven Mile Beach in Shoalhaven Heads.
The survey is making extensive use of the CoastalWatch positioned on the surf club’s roof. The camera is used to measure the shoreline position and wave climate on Seven Mile Beach.
Every month researchers from the University of NSW and Macquarie University have been completing extensive surveys of the beach and this is complemented by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage’s ocean surveys of the area.
The webcams being used for this survey are supplied by CoastalWatch. Chris Lane is the research and development manager of the CoastalCOMS Division at the company.
He revealed that Seven Mile Beach had been chosen for several reasons.
“Seven Mile Beach is a beach that has eroded and is very dynamic. We knew that during the current changes in the environment with the ongoing weather events that this would be a good beach for representation to monitor the micro-level changes in erosion that are going on at the coastline.”
While the study still has two years to run, the preliminary findings show that there is definitely a shift in the wave climate happening. “Whether that’s due to climate change or not is why we’re doing this study for so long,” said Mr Lane.
One thing is certain however. Seven Mile Beach is now one of the most monitored beach locations in the country and, according to Mr Lane, has one of the most comprehensive erosion datasets anywhere in the world.
