My local beach has grown at least 3 feet forward towards the sea in 3 years. There's a few sets of stairs that act as an excellent "Sand Dune Gauge". In the last few months, it has lost maybe 1 foot. The dunes look a big "raggedy" because the spinifex grass roots are now displayed, highlighting "erosion". The council has even expended money erecting signs highlighting beach erosion.
But it's literally 3 foot forward and 1 foot backwards, and the council thinks it's "Doom & Gloom". And the next step, back or forward, nobody knows! If a massive swell coincides with a really high tide, we might lose 1 foot. Or over Summer, we might gain 1 foot.
My council annoys me at times... Rates have gone up about 90% in 3 years too. Let's round it up to 100%. They have just gone and dropped a "bomb" of money on the ugliest "Taj Mahal - Let's Build a Monument to ourselves - Council Offices"!
I pay $38/week to The Council. I estimate they empty a maximum of 90 bins for me per year (combo of rubbish, recycling & green waste). That's costing me $20 per bin emptied! They do stuff all else for me!!
Alot of sand got caught in under the safe harbour at blairgowrie so they had it pumped a bit further down the beach. On a whole most of the beaches from frankston to portsea have lost. I wonder where it has all gone? Also wonder how much influence deepening the heads has. I know the tides are running faster/harder since.
Yep the ocean will do what ever it wants ,when it wants .
Active sand dunes all over me thinks , nothing new .
It's is the fault of you people.
Wash your feet before you go home, else you are just slowly but surely taking all the sand away from the beach to your place.
Lennox Heads beach is a classic example. At the front of Beachfront Apartments there is massive boulder walls. From year to year the sand covers then uncovers at least half the rocks. Better when there's lots of sand on them (less brown snakes)
It comes
it goes
it comes back again
It goes again
They truck it for miles
then it comes
another winter and it goes
and they truck it back again
All that diesel adding to the problem. cant have our esplanade property owners walking across a few rocks to to take the poodle for a swim now can we
There are at least six sand mines on the Stockton dunes. What gets trucked off there does not come back. Some got trucked as far as Hawaii to improve their beaches.
(It was not trucked the whole way
)
my beach seems much smaller but its just all of the weedy crap thats growing that the council wont remove or at least trim, it just catches the sand there and grows higher then we get massive ledges whenever we get a decent swell
jarryd
As mentioned - it's a cycle. I've done some work with coastal scientists in regard to planning applications and they struggle to deal with the mentality that 'the ocean is taking away our beaches' which is wide spread in the media & ultimately forced Vic government to apply heavy legislation on any coastal developments. Not to say that some areas aren't prone to erosion, but the red-tape is ridiculous for those areas that show no signs of erosion - just 'bunched' with the worst-case scenarios.
An example - a local beach where a new small development was halted by the council due to 'coastal erosion' has in fact grown 40m toward the ocean in the past 50 years, and has historic aerial photos to prove it. Unfortunately though, there are locals partitioning against the development and trying to influence the decision by showing firstly photos of the beach years ago in the middle of summer, when the sand has been pushed up & vegetation growing...and secondly, in late-winter after a storm-surge where the sand has been 'moved along' with the wind & current as the 'recent' pics.
It's a well known fact that the beach ebbs & tides with the seasons. Not sure of the stats, but in the past 10 years closure of beach access tracks have increased and I wouldn't be surprised that soon we'll all be banned from walking on a beach because it may cause erosion!
I think the main reason in Vic the beaches are de stabled, is from the sand cleaning tractors that remove the small loose washed in seaweed. The weeds previously acted as a structure, similar to reinforcement bars in concrete.
Take the seaweed away - sands moves around much more quickly.
In Fiji they bury the weed just below the sand where it gets washed up for aesthetic reasons, we tractor ours away.
Maybe local councils should stick to collecting garbage, running the local library and pool and keeping the roads in good order.
Everything else seems to be expensive, non productive and just costing us heaps.
I agree with you on the 'short-term' erosion-prone areas...the problem is, when the restrictions stretch to areas that aren't prone to erosion & they all get thrown in the same basket.
The one development I was referring to is >100m from the beach, the building envelopes are set behind the crest of the secondary dune (50-60m behind primary dune & swail) and avg 6-8m ht from AHD (sea-level) and on grassy land that was previously stock paddocks. The developers are farmers from several generations of landowners that have photos of the property when their great-grandparents owned the land at the turn of last century which shows small, grassy dunes & views to the ocean, currently the grassy dunes nearly obstruct the views the ocean is 50m or so further away, the land has increased over the past 100 or so years. They got planning permission, paid the fees, constructed the roads...then the council threw a Development Overlay on to the area & all works had to cease. The whole project went from a great idea and use of the land that was going to secure their retirement, to sending the family bankrupt with the bank taking the development & they lost their whole farm.
But I'm sure there are other stories like this due to planning inconsistencies.
I understand what you're saying and I sort of agree but the problem is where do you draw the line.
I've got no problem with any development however likely it is to be sucked into the sea or river or lake or volcano or whatever, so long as the people who build there accept that the risk is theirs, not everyone else's.
The problem is, when their nice house gets washed down the river because they built too close to it then they bleat to the council that it's their fault for approving the development and they want compensation, 
(this is them shouting, 'We want compensation!)
or the insurance company because they think it should be replaced by them, even though their policy excluded flood damage, (We want compensation!)
or failing all that they bleat to the government for compensation. (We want compensation!)
I'm bitching about this because Julia hit me with a thousand dollars of flood compensation tax because some idiots over in Queensland thought it would be ok to build on a low river bank, and somehow, apparently, that's now my responsibility and I have to pay for it.
On that basis, if I have to foot the bill, then nothing is ok if it has the slightest possibility of being washed away.
Just watch Trigg island surf cam for a year, in winter no sand, in summer miles of the stuff..
Most of the sand dissapearing from the Perth metro beaches seams to be winding up in the carpet of my cars 
safety bay is a great example of the coast moving. when we came in 1969 there was plenty water where your spit is now , I can remember coming home for a visit in the early 90's and wondering where the island came from.
Ive recently seen a chart of warnbo sound by septimus roe(WA's original surveyor) and it shows a massive spit that would have included seal rock , and penquin island and all those rocks to the south.
much of the housing area of safety bay is lakes and lake richmond is the smallest lake in the area
Look at Collaroy/Narrabeen on Sydneys northern beaches. The council has just finished moving hundreds of tons of sand from the entrance to Narrabeen Lagoon and trucking south 1 kilometre to replenish the sand that gets washed down the beach all the time. Its a natural cycle but to appease the beach front property owners whose frontyards are now part of the high tides 
.
It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, closes off a popular swimming beach area and leaves sand all over the main road.
Guarantee this time next year it will be on again.
