THE ROBIN HOOD APPROACH TO COASTAL MANAGEMENT - SAND HAVESTING THROUGH THE EYES OF BEACH SCRAPOLOGISTS

Abstract

Beach scraping or as originally and perhaps more appropriately described “Nature Assisted” Beach Enhancement (NABE), remains a somewhat poorly understood concept in Australia (Gordon 2015) and is often overlooked as a legitimate approach for coastal management. NABE is best suited to manage a situation where there is a need to rapidly restore a beach following an erosion event, or where a beach is suffering short to medium term recession, and there is a natural bypassing sand resource in the littoral zone that can be effectively “harvested” to establish or increase a dune sand buffer to protect built assets. The paper discusses both aspects but will focus on the latter, to provide a review of the overall viability of NABE in the context of sand harvesting operations at two NSW locations, where NABE operations have been integral in ensuring both the short and medium-term coastal security.