Over the last 50 years, the construction of hard coastal protective structures and erosion of the local offshore shoal, compounded by depletion of seagrass meadows through storm events, had led to significant erosion of local beaches at Emu Point.
Eight historical proposals to address this erosion were reviewed in terms of likely effectiveness and value for money. This included the identification and assessment of any unplanned associated downstream effects. Two recently tabled community options were developed technically, costed and assessed in line with the original eight options.
Preliminary coastal modelling revealed that incoming waves were now less refracted across the offshore shoal than in the past. In conjunction with the introduced hard structures increasing wave energy in the nearshore, the effect had been the migration of about 500,000m3 of sediment offshore and westwards, towards Middleton Beach.
Recommendations were made in terms of metocean data gathering and options for further development in subsequent stages of design.
