Sand Bypassing the Tweed River Entrance: An Overview

The entrance bar of the Tweed River has historically been a concern for navigators. Extensions to the river entrance walls were built in the early 1960s to improve the situation. This was relatively successful for a period, but over time sand accreted on the beach to the south of the entrance and, as sand began to pass the entrance again, a new bar developed seaward of the old bar. During this transition period, extensive erosion occurred on beaches to the north. As the Tweed River is in NSW and the affected beaches are in Queensland, the problems were jointly addressed. A solution was agreed that involved artificially bypassing sand from south of the entrance area to the Queensland beaches. From the start of work in 1995 until the permanent sand bypassing system began operations in May 2001, 3.6 million cubic metres of sand were dredged from the entrance and used to nourish the beaches to the north. This restored the condition of the southern Gold Coast beaches to their former condition and gave some relief to boat operators. A permanent system, which has the capacity to move the full littoral transport through pipelines placed under the river and below ground, was built in 14 months and commissioned in May 2001, after the channel was again cleared. The sand bypassing system is an environmental sustainable method of maintaining the improved beach and navigation conditions.