Featured: Erosion of Bayside beaches

by Dr Vicki Karalis AM, President

Have you noticed the changes to our coastline & the erosion
occurring at some parts of the Bayside beaches?

The erosion of the Bayside beaches has impacted access for beach walkers along adjoining
beaches. People are asking why we can't walk continuously along our coastline, and what is
happening. We have sought expert advice on the erosion currently occurring in Bayside & tried to
simplify the explanation.
The beaches most impacted in Bayside by the recent weather conditions & events are:
Black Rock beach
Sandringham beach
Dendy St beach

Images above:
Left: Tennyson St beach;
Right: Royal Ave beaches demonstrating erosion
11th March 2022

The image below demonstrates the natural seasonal changes that occur at Sandringham beach. The
predominant wave directions & resultant seasonal sand movement as shown in the diagram occurs
similarly along most of the Bayside coastline from Black Rock beach to Brighton beach.

Over summer, starting November till early April, the predominant winds are south- south-westerly winds.
The winds create strong wave action from the south, resulting in sand movement to the north.

Over winter, starting April till November, the predominant winds are north westerly, northerly winds. The
winds, create wave action predominantly from the north, resulting in sand movement to the south.

The south-westerly and southerly winds and wave action that occur over summer are generally stronger
than the northerly winds over winter. One reason for this is the longer fetch across the water from the
south. In Sandringham this results in a drift of sand parallel with the shoreline, predominately towards the
north resulting in a net loss of sand of approximately 2000 cubic metres per year. Due to this annual
deficit, we need and welcome a sand renourishment program for the Sandringham beach. This involves a
top-up of sand, such as that performed by DELWP in 2021 at Edward St beach. This program will be
ongoing via dredging or trucking-in extra sand from inland quarries.

The net movement and loss of sand each year from the Sandringham beach is a relatively natural
phenomena. However, there are variations in the winds each year which causes different levels of severity
of sand-loss from year to year. Hence, we cannot predict 100% what will occur on our beaches every
year. This year over summer and continuing even until recently, we have experienced predominant south-
easterly winds. This has led to unusually large volumes of sand moving to the north resulting in the
extensive erosion of the cliffs on the southern ends of the Bayside beaches.
In winter [usually starts around April till November] northerly winds transport sand back to the
south and the erosion of the cliffs will be less evident.

Along the Bayside beaches:

In summer, southerly winds cause waves to travel longer distances over Port Phillip Bay, about 35km from
Southwest compared with waves traveling about 18km from the Northwest over winter.
This creates a greater "fetch" wave energy →↑ higher waves →net northward longshore drift [transport of
sand] predominantly to the north.
However, man-made structures such as rock groynes disrupt the movement of sand. The image above
demonstrates the build-up of sand on the southern side, but depletion of the sand on the northern side.
The erosion is occurring on the northern aspects of rock groynes at this time of the year (where the
narrow beach fails to protect the base of the exposed cliff). The sand banked behind the groynes would
normally spread across evenly along the beach. The lack of sand on the northern aspect of the rock
groynes is exposing the base of the cliffs to wave action especially during storms.

With the current erosion on the northern sides of the groynes back to the cliff toe, public beach access is
practically cut off, forcing people up the banks/cliff, forming goat tracks that are damaging vegetation and
causing more instability and increasing erosion risks.

The DELWP understands our community concerns around the impacts of the rock groynes on the
adjacent beaches specifically the erosion on the northern sides. This is a well understood consequence of
groynes. At the time they were built, that was an acceptable consequence to save the beach and cliffs on
their southern sides.

DELWP understand and appreciates community concerns; we are hoping to have a community meeting in
the near future to discuss these issues.
Images above:
Left: 2013 -the saw tooth appearance of the shoreline created by the two rock groynes on
Sandringham beach
Right: February 2007 -the erosion of the Tennyson St beach immediately after the Tennyson St
rock groyne was constructed. This area of beach never experienced erosion prior to the rock
groyne.
Photographer John Amiet

A Fluker post located on Tennyson St ramp - it provides instructions how you can upload photos
of the erosion.

Sand and cliff erosion monitoring by SFA

SFA have been monitoring the erosion on most of the Bayside beaches since 2007.
Most of the photos we take of Sandringham beach have been uploaded onto the Fluker posts.

Fluker posts were installed at the Sandringham beaches to monitor erosion. See and download the
free APP here: https://www.flukerpost.com/

SAN 1 post is located at Royal Ave groyne

SAN 2 post is located at Tennyson St ramp
SAN 3 post is located at the top of the cliff at the Sandringham harbour to capture the accumulation of
sand.

Some of the photos are from the wrong sites unfortunately, and some in different directions to capture the
erosion at Royal Ave and Tennyson St beaches as the posts are too far away to appreciate the erosion, or
unable to view the erosion as it is located behind a headland.

Furthermore, Dr Blake Allan of the Victorian Coastal Monitoring Program's (VCMP) Citizen Science
Operations is monitoring the Sandringham beach coastline as the Sandringham beaches are particularly
prone to coastal erosion. The VCMP is a statewide program designed to gather baseline data about the
current condition of the Victorian coastline and monitor change in ways which can assist land managers.
Citizen science volunteers are helping with this project using drones! A special thanks to Helen Gibson
(geologist and SFA committee member), Richard Stolinski, Karina Sorrell, Rob Candy, Keith Cameron,
John Eltham, Trevor McQuillan and Andrew Eagle for all their incredible help!

Images of erosion along the Bayside coastline

- predominantly occurring on the southern ends of beaches as the sand is moving to the north, so
there is less sand on the south. Sand is building up on the northern ends protecting the base of the
cliffs:

Black Rock Beach, Black Rock

Images above:
Black Rock beach to the south towards Quiet corner- notice there is no sand in front of the
revetment wall. The wall is protecting the cliffs from wave action.
 20th March 2022
Image above. Below the Black Rock Lifesaving club, no sand exists, as it has moved to the north,
exposing the "Sandringham Sandstone" at the base of the cliff
- fortunately this rock-type is hard, and slower to erode with wave action compared with softer
sandy cliffs, layer above.

Royal Ave beach, Sandringham

 Above photos of Royal Ave beach, just north of the Royal Ave rock groyne.
The Royal Ave rock groyne was constructed in June 1990 to protect the Edward St cliffs from
erosion. It has a storm water drain pipe inside the groyne. Notice the softer sandy cliffs here are
very prone to erosion.

The sandbags were installed by DELWP at Royal Ave beach to protect the base of the cliffs from
wave action and erosion. Note the revetment wall seen exposed - which is likely to be part of

old sea baths.

 Tennyson St beach, Sandringham

Images above 18th February 2022. Tennyson St beach erosion just north of the Southey St rock
groyne. Fortunately the durable Sandringham Sandstone is protecting most [but not all] of the
base of the cliffs from further retreat.

Dendy St beach, Brighton

Dendy St beach 20th March 2022

Bayside City Council was very quick to protect the bathing boxes with the sand bags shown. This
protection also minimised dune erosion. Soon Council will renourish this area of the beach by
trucking sand from the north [south of the Park St rock groyne] to the south. Trucking of sand
occurs on many beaches throughout Australia and is an important way to help with sand
renourishment. Long term solutions are also being explored.
See: https://www.bayside.vic.gov.au/news/saving-dendy-street-beach

Erosion of the beaches is part of the ongoing natural processes and cycles along the Bayside
beaches, and any changes to man-made structures such as rock groynes will result in shoreline
change. The question is more about what form/shape of shoreline/beach and what degree and
 location of cliff erosion is acceptable to the community. Sea level rises, severe weather and storm
events that will occur with climate changes will contribute further to erosion.

Valuable coastline information for Australia provided by DELWP:

The link below is to Digital Earth Australia Coastlines is a continental dataset that includes annual
shorelines and rates of coastal change along the entire Australian coastline from 1988 to the present –
note in the “about data’ there is a link to data use and accuracy – basically these are quite coarse but will
provide short term trends (last 30yrs), also note they don’t take into account beach renourishments which
have taken place around Port Phillip since early 20 th century.

When you zoom in, it shows the erosion trends, then if you keep zooming in it then jumps to the mapped
shorelines.
https://maps.dea.ga.gov.au/#share=s-DEACoastlines&playStory=1

The Sandringham Foreshore Association is a charitable not-for-profit association. Membership is free. Our
self-acclaimed role is to foster and promote good natural conservation principles to Bayside foreshore
management. Our current focus is to assist public education by aligning ourselves with scientific experts in
fields of conservation and natural environment, and to facilitate effective communication between
community – council and state governments – and established environmental science publications and
position statements.
The role of SFA is to care for and help protect our local beaches and cliffs, but also to educate, raise
awareness and preserve our local archaeological, geological, cultural, indigenous and heritage sites such
as the Beaumaris Bay fossil site.

Copyright: Sandringham Foreshore Association All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is: sandyforeshore@optusnet.com.au