00:00Every dry season, thousands of tourists flock to sample Darwin's beach food and sunsets.
00:08People structure their holidays around coming to the Mendel Beach markets. How iconic is
00:13that?
00:14But this year, wet season tides and waves have taken half the beach, leaving restricted
00:18access because most of the walkways were washed away.
00:22It's blocked off on the other side and that's quite a dangerous drop off.
00:27Seasonal erosion defences have been toppled.
00:30The damage all the way down is just phenomenal.
00:33The Darwin Council is promising walkway repairs after years of dune revegetation to reduce
00:40damage.
00:41It involves smoothing the paths and bringing some of the sand back from below the tide
00:46mark and putting it back.
00:48Most states are fighting similar battles. Aware of fixes are often expensive and temporary.
00:55We do know that sea level rise has accelerated over the last 30 years.
01:00While Mendel Beach in Darwin has lost a considerable amount of sand to erosion, scientists say
01:06at other beaches around Australia, sand is actually building up.
01:10About 11% are actually prograding or getting bigger and about 11% are actually eroding.
01:18There are particular areas suffering from coastal erosion around Darwin, just as there
01:23are around the country.
01:25On places like Bear Sand Island near Darwin, expanding beaches are benefiting nesting turtles.
01:33Scientists say most of Australia's coastline is currently stable and much of the power
01:38to influence coastal erosion is actually in our own hands.
01:42For instance, we build a port and we put out big breakwaters.
01:47With quite localised impacts.
01:50Even where you're protecting infrastructure with a seawall, usually at great cost, you'll
01:55have a negative impact somewhere else.
01:58So while we need to tackle sea level rise globally, some local erosion solutions are
02:04closer at hand.
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