Eroding section of Old Bar Beach showing exposed rock at the foot of the dune.
Coastal erosion is an ongoing problem for some populated areas of the Australian coast. The fundamental processes that cause erosion during storms are generally well understood and management strategies are available. However, the response of beaches to successive storms (storm clusters), such as those that damaged Australia's east coast in 1974, is not well understood or managed, with the response of any given beach depending on its physical characteristics. Because of this, the likely effectiveness of a given management strategy may not be clear, such as beach nourishment (a remedial process whereby sand is added to a beach to restore its shape). This project has developed an analytical toolkit for coastal managers to better understand beach response to clustered storms and to place this in the context of the geological and oceanographic setting, and land use, for a given part of the Australian coast.