Coastal Management
By Anoushka Rehan
Who Is The Hero?
Whether you are Iron Man, a little girls fantasy, or a caped silhouette, you are a HERO. And you can save Sydney's coast.
Your Superpowers
- Time
- Perseverance
- Ability to Work In a Team and Independently
- A Sense Of Responsibility
YOUR JOB DESCRIPTION
Where Are You Needed?
What Coastal Management Concern? Why?
UNCONTROLLED PEDESTRIAN AND VEHICLE MOVEMENT.
Uncontrolled movement of this sort leads to:
- trampled coastal vegetation.
- Destruction of sand dunes
- Eventually the disturbed the area becoming more prone to erosion and soil & sand displacement
- soil loss into the ocean
- loss in the aesthetic value of the coastal region, resulting in decline in tourism and property purchases.
Due to the long and short term consequences for all users of the coastline, uncontrolled pedestrian and vehicle movement impacts us all.
Locals of the Sydney coastline impacted by improvement of the beach resulting in a more astheically pleasing coastline leading to a higher value of their property.
Users of the beach are provided with a healthier beach for their continual enjoyment. Moreover, the council is benefited by the action plan detailed below as tourism in the area will increase and the budget will be spared from repair bills of the coastline in the long run.
By making the changes mantioned below YOU can improve our coastline for many future generations.
Your Action Plan: How you plan to make a difference
In order to prevent erosion caused by human uses of the beach you will:
- Carefully plan out each site before we construct. This includes building footpaths, car parks and fences to limit access to more sensitive sections of the beach.
- Educate users of the beach on the affects of their action, and the need to rehabilitate the coastline
- Enforce the limitations set for users, including hiring individuals to guide others towards the footpath, and even fine repeat offenders who continuously walk over the vegetation despite their being a walkway and enter fenced sections of the beach.
In order to reduce the effects of erosion caused by human uses of the beach you will:
- Plant more vegetation over the existing sand dunes. This will help keep the sand in place.
- Restore sand dunes. Sand dunes are a ridge of sand that protect us from storms surges, hurricanes, flooding of the ocean and large wave action and if they are not restored to a sufficient level- and kept in place by vegetation- then the waves will be able to erode away the land
- Build footpaths from the road to the beach to restrict pedestrians walking over and destroying valuable vegetation
- build car parks and road for the cars to get there to reduce individuals parking all over the sand dunes and dislodging the sand
- sand bag areas of the beach where there is a notable lack of sand and the waves are reaching too close to the roads, buildings and etc.
- build seawalls (a.k.a. groynes) to keep the eroded sand within the stretch of beach. This will counteract the affects of long shore drifting caused by the lack of vegetation to hold the sand in place.
Careful planning of Beaches to include car parks, footpaths, etc.
Plant Vegetation & Build Walk Ways
Trails created due to this unregulated use of the land have become footpaths of their own however as there is no actual pathway users of the beach are not obliged to use it and the beach's vegetation is further reduced. By building clear footpaths for users and planting and caring for vegetation on the dunes users of the beach will be gifted with a healthier beach.
Use Groynes
The use of groynes is visible near the Quilbray area. Visible near the bottom of the picture is Bonna Point Reserve near which the beach stretch has a groyne every 200 m. The following images are close ups of the same beach. Groynes are also used along Ramsgate Beach.
What stands in your way?
Implementing all the sub-sections of your action plan to save the Sydney coastline will involve you gaining some opposition. Such opposition includes:
- Residents Living Near the Beach- Their view will be cut off as the dunes are restored and due to foopaths in place residents walk to the beach will be less convienent.
- The Local Council- as you will require a large sum of their money, effort, organisitation and time from them.
- General Beach Users- with the limitations placed on certain parts of the beach where the vegetation is particularly sensitive beach users will be restricted in their castal activities for a small period of time and this may upset some beach goers.
- Tourists- Whilst on holiday many tourists will not be aware of the new each action and will become an obstacle as they enjoy their trip.
How to overcome this adversity?
The opposition is not really your enemy. They too want whats best for the beach and if time is taken to explain to them what is best for the beach and how your action plan aims to achieve then you can form an allience. Run a compaign to get the required action flowing and partition to have this change become permanent. Education of this form is best done through social media as it allows you to reach a widespread community. After all, coastal management is not a Sydney only concern.
The introduction of signs explaining proper behaviour at the beach and a hired individual to work at the beach- much like a lifeguard and keep beach goers away from any fenced of areas and on the footpaths.
Furthermore, nature whilst it is an obstacle in our path to long term improvement of the beach is not villian nor opposer in this battle. It is a force hat must be worked with, not against. What this means is that when panning any coastline site consideration must be taken of the typical weather conditions faced by the Sydney region and the design must be so to widstand any such future situations.
In the end you are the superhero, you have the responsibility to make a change and only you can do as advised to save the sydney coastline.
Sorces used
- http://www.planning.wa.gov.au/dop_pub_pdf/6_common_problems.pdf
- http://www.skwirk.com/p-c_s-16_u-140_t-414_c-1451/coastal-management/nsw/coastal-management/issues-in-australian-environments/geographical-issues-physical-environments
- http://www.coastalmanagement.com/featured-case-study/
- http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/coasts/coastalerosionmgmt.htm