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Where did our beach go?

3/8/2019

2 Comments

 
PictureEcologist Alison Oates, South Gippsland Conservation Society vice president Dave Sutton and Marine and Coastal Council chair Anthony Boxshall inspect the beach after the launch of the report. The wet sand fencing trial can be seen in the background.
By Catherine Watson
 

WE ARE in uncharted waters when it comes to understanding what’s happening to the Inverloch beaches, according to geomorphologist Neville Rosengren.
 
He made the comment at the Inverloch Surf Lifesaving Club yesterday as the South Gippsland Conservation Society launched a major report that called for a range of short-term and long-term measures to address or slow Inverloch’s coastal erosion.
 
The Inverloch Coastal Resilience Report, the culmination of 12 months of investigation and consultation, draws on specialist consultant studies in geomorphology, ecology, cultural heritage and economics commissioned for the project.

Picture
Project leader Philip Heath urged the State Government and Bass Coast Shire Council to consider the findings and recommendations in future planning for the Inverloch coast.
 
The audience of residents and scientists included the chair of Victoria’s Marine and Coastal Council, Anthony Boxshall, who applauded the quality of the SGCS report. “It’s highly unusual to get such a substantial piece of evidence-based research from a community organisation. You’ve brought all the decision makers together.”
 
The report found the beach had receded by six metres a year since 2013, one of the most rapid changes along a sandy coastline in Victoria in European times, and rated as ‘severe’ to ‘extreme’ by global comparison. The recession has accelerated over the past year.
 
Dr Rosengren said talking of “cycles” was not helpful in understanding what was happening on the beach.  While the shoreline changes are probably caused by rising sea levels and more frequent and more intense storms, something else is also occurring that scientists don’t fully understand,
 
In previous beach erosion events, sand from the surf beach was deposited offshore. Now it’s being deflected into Anderson Inlet, creating sand barriers in the inlet and reducing the quantity of sand available for natural beach renourishment.
 
An economic study assessed the likely impacts of the disappearing beach on the local economy at $3 to $5 million. Inverloch’s Aboriginal cultural heritage is also at risk with four sites reflecting an occupation period of some 7000 years at risk from destabilisation of the dunes.
 
Ecologist Alison Oates found that almost half the dune system vegetation has been lost since 2013. At yesterday’s launch she described visits to Flat Rocks where the mature coast banksia trees were disappearing before her eyes.
 
She said the coastal vegetation was one of the few east-west biolinks in the region,
acting as an important corridor for wildlife movement along the coast, as well as for wildlife movement between the coast and hinterland areas.
 
She recorded the loss of incipient dunes (foredune) between Flat Rocks to just west of Point Norman, resulting in complete loss of suitable nesting habitat for vulnerable shorebird species, including hooded plovers.
 
Ms Oates said no further native vegetation should be removed from the Inverloch dune system, including the rear dunes adjacent to Surf Parade.
 
The report recommends a range of short-term measures to address erosion, including revegetation with appropriate native species, dune renourishment, thatching of steep dune slopes with eroded tea tree branches and debris, effective weed and pest control, rationalising of beach access tracks and educating beach users not to trample on the dunes.
 
It also recommends extending the current wet sand fencing trial to 100 metres and a 45 degree turn at the western ends of each section.
 
It calls for a Local Coastal Hazard Assessment (LCHA)) to identify feasible longer-term strategies to manage future surf beach erosion and Inlet accretion events.
 
“It is crucial that investigations commence as soon as possible, otherwise the environmental, social and economic values identified in this report will have been lost before any longer-term measures have been identified.
 
A key element of future studies will be to analyse the complex relationships between offshore coastal processes, Anderson Inlet and Point Smythe, including sources and dynamics of sand for the entire coastal area and tidal dynamics to determine sand pathways on ebb and flood tides.
 
Mr Boxshall said the default response to coastal encroachment was the idea of protecting assets with engineering interventions but humanity had to adapt to a new normal where storms could no longer be dismissed as “freak”.
 
“We could live behind sea walls. The Dutch have done it for decades. But most of the things people love and want to protect will have to go.”
 
He said the reality was that residential areas in parts if Victoria will soon be under water. “It’s a conversation we need to have. It has got to be enabled by a statewide approach and we need leaders at local government level to have confidence to act.”

Picture
Ecologist Alison Oates, geomorphologist Neville Rosengren, DELWP’s Carole McMillan, Marine and Coastal Council chair Anthony Boxshall and project leader Philip Heath.
2 Comments
George Varigos
4/8/2019 02:40:04 pm

Allison Carol et al thanks for highlighting a problem of the Coast of Concern and your initiatives to come...my concerns are ...
1.How do we define native plants? and do we use historical records ?and the wonderful most logical EVC 'remember its only a guide'.
2.I hope it remains as a coastal headland scrub and not becoming a woodland environment with invasive species and high dense canopy, just to follow the old outdated ecological theory of Alexander von Humboldt.
3.Also there is little evidence that logs and dead wood helps the diversity and ecosytems . In fact there are published papers recently showing the diversity of Ants is reversed and predators appear especially if canopy is dense.

4.The dunes and low Grasslands should be left to grow and propogate and also perhaps use the time proven method of Indigenous land owners Wurrk tradition minmal intervention .
Putting indigenous conservation policy into practice delivers biodiversity and cultural benefits published evidenced.*

5.Over planting species and species with known warnings published in the ecology literature *would be sad so called "natives" such as the Casuarina which grows beyond the sapling stage, it ceases to trap sand because of the lack of low, shrubby vegetation around the trunk. Casuarina monocultures are usually flat without dune-swale topography and lack diversity in understory vegetation. The shallow root systems of the trees makes them susceptible to toppling during storms published in peered reviewed literature *and as fact visible along the visible along the western side of the anthropogenic Forestration Corinella Foreshore over the last 15years.
I wish you all well in this endeavour to save the shoreline but there are many reasons the changes are happening and what your community wants is not to make it worse with lack of proven modelling and lack of evidence and not using the newer ecological data and world evidenced best practice as coastal ecological managers.
GAV and on behalf of others.

Reply
Michael Buckley
5/8/2019 09:41:20 am

The coastal degradation along the shore line has spedup considerably in the last couple of years. I live on the Smyth point side of the inlet and we are facing simular problems. A large part of what we are seeing is degradation due to human foot traffic and other beach activities ie. Digging playing sport and walking dogs. It seems like peoples activities should be restricted in order to conserve some of whats left.

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