News
IN THE NEWS
Will Gold Coast's beaches be restored by Easter? Radio National Breakfast
Landslide on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula sends house 'tumbling', other homes evacuated
Novel Australian project examines if renewable energy machines can protect coastlines
Tourist Beach to close due to Coastal erosion (Yahoo)
ABC Melbourne Conversation Hour report on Victoria's Eroding Coastline 10 Sep 2024
Beach Monitoring Project
NEXT LASER MONITORING SESSION
Monday 12 May at 8am approx 1 hour (TBC)
New volunteers welcome to come along and learn to use the laser measuring equipment. We are looking to train a few more people up as we have agreed to supply limited data to Swinburne University every three weeks for one of their research projects. Contact us if you would like to help.
Every few weeks we use a drone or laser to accurately measure beach profiles along 4km of East Beach. The table to the right illustrates recent changes against historic data see here for explanation, or here for historic data.
Protecting East Beach against leakage from the old tip
Read here David Bills-Thompson's explanation of the objectives of beach monitoring and the wave energy dissipation structure at the old tip site.
Quick Summary Table
Recent drone survey shows the dune crest behind post 9 has receded inland by nearly a metre since December.
This chart shows sand height at posts 3 (Manifold Street), 6 (NE end of night soil site) and 9 (N end of tip site) over time.
Up to about 2017, sand levels at posts 3, 6 and 9 track each other reasonably well with a slight variation in the phase of the rise and fall at each post. After 2017, post 3 has a very dramatic sand loss (the Orange line) and its still recovering.
While there is still some correlation between the levels at the posts, its not as well defined as it is prior to 2017.
Gallery
Our collection of photographs reflect the diversity of views of our esturary and coastline.
Year 6 School Science project
Once or twice a term students from local primary schools join PFCG and help measure sand levels at Pea Soup and South Beach. Drones cannot be used to measure sand levels on these beaches so a laser is used to make transverse and longitudinal measurements.
The council uses the data to inform its coastal protection and rehabilitation work.
St Patrick's Primary School and Port Fairy Consolidated School are currently involved with this project
JOIN THE TEAM
PFCG is always on the lookout for enthusiastic new recruits to join our beach monitoring sessions. If you are interested contact us to find out more.
Covenant College Visit
On Thursday 13th March, Port Fairy Coastal Group hosted a group of Year 12 Environmental Studies students from Covenant College Geelong. The group of 10 students and 2 teachers were touring the south west, exploring various natural and man-made environments, with a particular interest in the impact of human interaction with the natural environment and the history of Europe settlement in the area. We met the group at the rock wall in front of the old tip site and spoke about the challenges of that particular site, the formation of the PFCG and our ongoing beach monitoring. We then conducted a beach monitoring session with the students actively involved in the taking of measurements using the laser level and recording the data.