Protect Wooli

Protect Wooli From Coastal Erosion

You are here: Home / Archives for 2012

Beach Survey trends for 2012-14

by Leave a Comment

Thanks once again to Brian Saye and the beach survey team for their ongoing efforts in accurately mapping changes in the beach.

A quick read of our earlier survey-stories, http://protectwooli.wpengine.com/category/research/beach-survey/  should help if you need a refresher on the whys and wherefores of our survey program.

We are now well into the third year of this project and have the results of nine surveys taken each quarter from January 2012 through to June 2014.

Headlines  from the latest survey data are:

 1.         From the Wall to the Village

The beach has continued to build up across its entire width from the dune to the low tide line. While the improvement is slow it continues the growth shown in the 2013 surveys.

2.         In front of the Village

The 2014 surveys confirms a substantial build-up of the beach nearer to the dune which is now at its highest level since our first survey in 2012. Nearer the water the beach is more eroded then in 2012 but has built up since the low point in 2013.

3.     From the Village to Wilson’s Headland

There is no consistent trend across the 13 surveyed segments covering this part of the beach. High and low measurements are spread fairly evenly across the 2012, 2013 and 2014 survey.

If you want to see the details  here’s a view across the whole village    in which you can use the PDF-magnifier to zoom in on particular sections. Here are the views north of  the village to Wilson’s Headland and south from the village to Jones Beach.

 

Beach Survey trends for 2012-13

by Leave a Comment

A big thank you to Brian Saye and the beach survey team for their ongoing efforts in accurately mapping changes in the beach.

A quick read of our earlier survey-stories, Beach Surveys and Steady as  she goes, should help if you need a refresher on the whys and wherefores of our survey program.

We are now well into the second year of this project and have the results of six surveys taken each quarter from January 2012 through to June 2013. A recent addition to the survey has been the capture of the locations of each of the 80 sand-traps now in place so that their effects can be directly measured.

Two headlines  are apparent from the survey data.

Firstly, the foot of the main dune in front of the village has built up substantially  from June 2012 to June 2013 across all 26 survey cross sections (S12 to S38)covering that area. Here’s a view across the whole village  in which you can use the magnifier to zoom in on particular sections. You can see the difference  if you compare the pink line of June 2013 to the blue line of June 2012. Here’s the section in front of the bowling club  to illustrate the build up.  There may be multiple factors causing this build up but the correlation with DuneCare’s sand-traps is striking. Interesting to see that while the foot of the dune is building, closer to the water the beach has become steeper and lower over the year.

Secondly, the surveys confirm that there is substantial variation in the pattern  of change across the 7km length of the beach as highlighted in the recent Automated Cameras Report. In contrast to the change described in front of the village, the sections towards the river walls show little change (eg S6) while the sections north to Wilsons show both erosion (eg S50 near Wilsons) and accretion (eg S42 a little north of the village).

Finally, an exciting new prospect we’re looking into is the possibility of using the survey data to start measuring changes in the total weight of sand on the beach. This will help determine whether the beach is systemically shrinking, growing or just oscillating a constant amount of sand along its length and breadth.

 

Steady as she goes and a bit north

by Leave a Comment

 

2012 has been a big year for CCPA’s beach survey team of Brian Saye and Bob Stack

 

They have not only

–   completed four surveys of the entire beach from Wilsons Headland to Jones Beach

–   and computerised all that data into graphics that we can understand (see below)

–  but they’ve also recently become accredited quad bike riders which has really made the process easier and faster.

 

As Brian says “there may be an illusion (or two) in this initial data , such as not yet picking up the effects of the sand traps, but we’ll work those out over time. And Jones Beach is a bugger to get the gear to so has had only one survey. It’s a high priority after the Christmas break”.

 

As you can see from this view looking down on the beach in front of the village, Brian and Bob took measurements every 100 m (eg between S37 and S38). North and south of the village they took measurements every 200 m (eg between S38 and S39). A critical survey measurement is the beach’s height above average sea level (referred to on the graphs as AHD for Australian Height Datum)

Here are the views of the rest of the beach looking north to Wilsons Headland  and  south to Jones Beach

At each measurement point all four surveys are colour-coded so it’s easy to see how the beach is changing.  For example, take a look at an enlarged view of  S38  at the northern end of the village. While the beach hasn’t changed much near the Bowling Club at S22, its clearly grown at S52  near Wilsons.

 

The initial conclusions from this data are that the beach around the village has been stable during 2012 with a lot of sand deposited from January to June which has since been taken away and has now shown up at Wilsons Headland (hence the title of this page “steady as she goes and a bit north”).

 

Coastal Protection Workshop

by Leave a Comment

 

 

   On September 8  the state government announced  the first stage of major reforms to the coastal protection legislation which has been the source of many of the regulatory threats to Wooli and other coastal communities since 2010.

 

Following that announcement the Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) has sent invitations to community groups, including CCPA-Wooli, to workshops set up to discuss both these reforms and the Coastal Amendment Protection Bill 2012 which was introduced into parliament recently.

CCPA Steering Committee members Don Parkes and Peter Dunn will  be attending the Ballina workshop on October 29 to fly the flag for Wooli.

Here’s more information about the reforms and the Bill and if you’d like to send questions or suggestions for Don and Peter to raise at the workshop please email them to petedunn@bigpond.net.au.

Thanks to Juliet Thomasson for the stunning photo above of  a new day dawning over our favourite beach

 

 

 

Macquarie St., Prince St. and Main St. move ahead.

by Leave a Comment

 

    Speaking from his office in Main St. Wooli,  Bruce Bird (President of the Protect Wooli campaign) congratulated Clarence Valley Council on its recent unanimous decision to undertake a major revision of Wooli ‘s Coastal Zone Management Plan (CZMP).

     â€œIt didn ‘t happen overnight but it did happen” said Bruce.“We ‘ve still got a lot of hurdles to clear but this was a big one to get over.

The new plan will move away from abandoning the village. Instead it will focus on understanding the forces that shape the beach and using modern adaptive management science to develop a beach protection strategy for the long term”.

For the full story read our previous News item

 

Following hard on the heels of the Prince St. announcement,  theWooli community and CVC received strong support for their new approach via a media release from the O ‘Farrell government in Macquarie St. Sydney.

The release by Special Minister of State, Chris Hartcher  announced that

–   The heavy handed application of (the previous government) Labour ‘s sea level rise planning benchmarks for 2050 and 2100 would go…given that the scientific knowledge in the field was continually evolving

–   Councils will have the freedom to consider local conditions when determining future hazards

–   (And there will be) more freedom given to landowners to protect their properties from erosion.

 

 

Main St. and Prince St. aren ‘t resting on their laurels however.

The Wooli community has already implemented the surveys and automated photography systems to capture on-shore data about the beach and dunes. The community is now working with CVC on a jointly funded project to map the off-shore data about Wooli bay including its waves, currents, contours and sediments.

Time is of the essence as CVC works towards having a new CZMP available by December. What a Christmas present that would be for the Wooli community.