Coastal erosion impacting beach access in Darwin

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Darwin's famous Mindil Beach Sunset Market will reopen tomorrow for the dry season with almost no access to the beach. During the wet season all but one of the beach walkways, and most of the dunes, were washed away.

Transcript

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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