Reviews the management of adelaides metropolitan beaches
Assignment: Text for summarising
The following text has 508 words. Write a summary that reduces the word count by half,to approximately 250-260 words.
Metropolitan Adelaide’s coastline is eroding under natural conditions. Sand moves in a net northerly direction along the coast and mean sea level is rising gradually. Erosion of the coastline has been compounded by unwise coastal developments in earlier years. The Coast Protection Board is restoring and maintaining beaches on the metropolitan coastline as the most desirable means of coast protection. As a consequence, the Board also sustains a beach environment that is a valuable state amenity and tourist asset. Annual public visitation to Adelaide beaches far exceeds that of other recreational activities.
Since 1983 the necessary supply of sand to the southern beaches has been drawn from northern onshore sites by recycling or from other offshore areas by dredging pockets of suitable sand. The replenishment method is effective and economical in that rates of replenishment can be adjusted to meet periods of greater or lesser sand movement or local damage from storms.
The program has been demonstrably successful. The protective sand dunes that have now built up at Brighton, Henley South and Grange are the result of over three decades of beach replenishment.Seaside councils have contributed by stabilising dunes with sand drift fencing and revegetation programs and by installing walkways over the dunes. Before the beach replenishment program, the beaches from Brighton to Henley Beach were narrowwith no beach at high tide, and storm erosion regularly damaged foreshore roads, car parks and community facilities. Since the replenishment program, storm damage has been reduced to around 5% of the damage bill for the same period before 1983.
Regular reviews of the management of Adelaide’s metropolitan beaches havesupported the replenishment strategy as the most cost-effective way of maintaining sandy beaches and protecting property on the foreshore. However, beach replenishment relies on sustainable and economical sources of sand being available. By 2007 historical sources of sand had been exhausted, leading the Coast Protection Board to carry out a range of offshore and land-based sand source investigations.
A large reserve of suitable sand was identified in the Mount Compass area, estimated to be sufficient to supply Adelaide’s beaches for hundreds of years at current replenishment rates. However, the need for washing to remove clay and the supply costs for sand from Mount Compass were much higher than for sand from within Adelaide’s beach system.
The cost of managing Adelaide’s beaches continued to grow not just because of the dwindling local sand sources but also seagrass loss, rising sea levels and the need to bypass sand around the harbours of Holdfast Shores and Adelaide Shores. A 2013 review recommended that alternative sources of sand be again investigated as a matter of urgency to supplement the existing sand supply.
In 2015, on behalf of the Coast Protection Board, the Department for Environment and Heritage initiated a review of the management of Adelaide’s beaches to address these issues. Based on the effectiveness of existing strategies, input from the community and a series of modelling and feasibility studies, the Department has now released for public commentAdelaide’s Living Beaches: A Strategy for 2015-2035.
