Framework for Beach Renourishment, Port Phillip Bay

Around 25 kilometres of the popular recreational beaches in Port Phillip Bay have been enhanced or reinstated by beach renourishment. 20 kilometres were renourished by eighteen projects undertaken between 1975 and 1987. There was a ten year gap before more recent projects were undertaken at Hampton in 1997, Sandridge in 1999, and Point Lonsdale in 2000. Despite the early success funding was not always assured during tight budgetary times. The work is often not fully appreciated, as with time renourished beaches are usually indistinguishable from natural beaches. In developing a framework for the long term strategy and priorities for beach renourishment it was realised that the process also needed to sell the undoubted benefits of past projects to support future funding. Technical coastal engineering analysis was fundamental to evaluating previous projects and developing the project list to be analysed within the framework. The framework analyses projects according to five main categories namely: risk issues; capital and life cycle costs; coastal engineering design and implementation; planning and environmental issues; and, social and economic issues. Analysis using the framework provides broad guidance but regular reassessment will be required to test changed circumstances.