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Coastal science often uses conceptual models to describe how landforms are expected to evolve under different pressures. Coral islands challenge the use of general models, as the presence or absence of individual features can affect how each island changes, sometimes with significant differences in the same archipelago. Managing impacts to islands and island communities effectively into the future needs an understanding of each island, with local geomorphology telling a key p

Ask a coastal engineer and an oceanographer the same question, and you’ll get two different answers. They're both right, and yet they're both wrong. I was recently asked to look at near-bed currents on the Sydney Shelf. I'd done my reading (as a coastal scientist) and it was a clear slam-dunk that the shelf is wave-dominated with tiny tidal currents. Following a similar method I'd applied on the Gold Coast in ~12-m water depth, I started to evaluate the considerable record o

Western Australia's Capes Coast illustrates how inner shelf and nearshore features can modify sediment transfers: it is not just wave-driven littoral transport along the shore! The inner shelf structure provides a crucial influence on shelf-coast sediment exchange. Here rocky formations provide a spectacular coast, robust under severe storm waves. However, the sandy beaches and dunes have reduced resilience due to low sand supply, and under projected sea level rise, their str

Masterplanning is a phase done early in development, aimed to collate critical, multi-disciplinary elements that will enable a project hold together, without reaching the stage of detailed engineering for all elements. Foreshore masterplanning can be a challenge, as shores change over time. Implications for getting it 'wrong', even by a few metres, can include significant impact to foreshore amenity, or high costs to undertake retroactive stabilisation. It is not always easy

No... it's not a typo for the (anti?) charismatic megafauna which patrol our southern shores...

After 30 years in the engineering consulting industry, successfully identifying why a coastal design isn’t performing to expectations is...

With growing discussion on NBS and its application, here's a wildly empirical consideration of how riparian vegetation enhances foreshore...