Published in Ocean & Coastal Management Jan 2018
This technical paper provides a spatial framework to support investigation and management of the Australian coast. It follows on from previous work on coastal compartments funded by the WA State Government, Geoscience Australia and most recently NCCARF Phase II.
Presentation of the Western Australian compartment and cells framework (Eliot et al. 2011) at a national forum provided an opportunity to discuss the relative merits of large scale geomorphic frameworks. It was identified that for most States, geomorphic frameworks have been used for coastal management, to one degree or another. Led by Professor Bruce Thom, a pathway towards national application of geomorphic frameworks was established: Step 1 of the National Coastal Compartments Project involved developing a consensus on a practical geomorphic hierarchy. This defined several different spatial scales, including three 'coastal compartment' scales, which define segments of coast within which there are characteristic geomorphic relationships. The most widely applied characteristic is that of sediment exchange, therefore bringing strong parallels between 'coastal compartments' and the concepts of 'sediment cells' used for the UK and US. Identification of primary and secondary compartments was determined by a panel of geomorphologists with experience around Australia. Mapping of the coastal compartments was undertaken by Geoscience Australia (McPherson et al 2013). https://data.gov.au/dataset/primary-and-secondary-coastal-sediment-compartment-maps Step 2 of the National Coastal Compartments Project involved evaluation of the compartments approach, particularly with respect to its value for climate change impact assessment. http://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/adaptation/australias-coasts/coastal-compartments This included two 'case studies', looking at aspects of how to apply compartments. The 'east coast' study examined the viability of using uncertainty based methods for describing future change in compartments with different degrees of sediment closure (Mariani et al. 2013). The 'west coast' study examined how a hierarchical geomorphic framework may guide refined assessment of coastal dynamics (Eliot 2013). Application to the different settings of the southwest and Pilbara demonstrated that generic coastal frameworks are likely to substantially miss spatial variation of behaviour. Step 3 of the National Coastal Compartments Project has included dissemination of expert knowledge regarding coastal processes through NCCARF's CoastAdapt website. https://coastadapt.com.au/how-to-pages/use-sediment-compartments-regional-coastal-management Development of this knowledge base was led by Professor Bruce Thom, and involved input form a number of coastal geomorphologists around Australia. B.G. Thom, I. Eliot, M. Eliot, N. Harvey, D. Rissik, C. Sharples, A.D. Short and C.D. Woodroffe (2018) National Sediment Compartment Framework for Australian Coastal Management.