Narrowneck Beach erosion: Wild weather eats away at sand dunes along Gold Coast

Windy weather paired with large swells have washed away more sand from a precarious Gold Coast beach.

WINDY weather paired with large swells have washed away more sand from a precarious Gold Coast beach.

Two metres was carved away from Narrowneck, while 1m scarping occurred at Burleigh.

It comes after the city was inundated with abrupt downpours throughout the week, while the weekend brought gusts of wind up to 72km/h along the coastline with 6m swells.

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More scarping at Narrowneck after the large swells. Pic Mike Batterham

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Sam Campbell said the average wave conditions were 4-5m across the weekend, with 6m waves picked up on Saturday.

Gusts of winds peaking at 72km/h were recorded at the Seaway, he said, while 20mm of rain hit the Seaway.

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A spokeswoman from Gold Coast City Council told the Bulletin: “Our beach maintenance crews have been inspecting the beaches on a daily basis to check for erosion during the heavy swell event.

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Beaches were closed along the city during the weekend. Pic Mike Batterham

“We plan to commence work to restore the scarping from Monday morning. Work is expected to take a couple of days.”

Tourist Brooke Levay, 18, said she was surprised to see so much scarping along the beach, but was looking forward to exploring the beaches once the weather improved.

Former secretary of the Main Beach Progress Association Georgie Brown said she had been concerned about the loss of beach, but was pleased that the damage appeared to have been mitigated through council works along the foreshore.

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Ms Levay was surprised to see all the scarping. Pic Mike Batterham

“The Gold Coast council has always been proactive in the restoration of the dunes,” she said.

“But I think it’s something that locals should be aware of with climate change, that it is probably going to happen again and more often.”

Ms Brown added that council needed to rethink whether to issue out more permits to build along the foreshore.

Narrowneck in particular has been battling erosion for years, leading to the $1.5m Narrowneck Seawall program.

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The $1.5m Narrowneck Seawall program will help reduce erosion. Pic Mike Batterham

The project will see 300m of seawall from Higman Street to Ocean Avenue constructed to help reduce erosion during adverse weather events.

The costs for the latest scarping will be covered by the city’s annual beach maintenance budget, the council spokeswoman said.

“Works to the seawall at Narrowneck have not been impacted.”

Meteorologist Mr Campbell said showers were easing today while the rest of the week would be “relatively pleasant”, with temperatures one or two degrees above average at 23C.