The way of water: Can anything be done to save our disappearing beaches?

When I moved into the Fremantle area – it was around the time COVID began its deadly march across the globe – I thought I’d washed up in paradise.

While the rest of the world bolted itself up behind closed doors, Freo folk wandered through its historic precincts, lingered in coffee shops to chat about how fortunate we were the virus was barely touching our lives, and made a bee-line to South Beach – in particular the gorgeous white arc in front of the vibrant multicultural mecca that is Wilson Park.

We couldn’t travel during COVID, but what did it matter? Every day on South Beach it was an open-air meeting of the United Nations, with travellers from Paris to Paraguay making the most of being locked out of their plague-ridden homelands and relishing in a unique locale that brings together places to eat and drink, a broad-minded community and a beach as alluring as any in the world.

Erosion is impacting on beaches everywhere, but the loss of South Beach would be especially devastating for the Fremantle community.Credit: Mark Naglazas

South Beach is a far cry from those wide-open ultra-Aussie surf destinations such as Scarborough and Trigg (the bit in front of Wilson Park is barely a kilometre long). But of all the beaches I’ve spent time on it’s the one most deeply embedded into its community, the one that most vividly embodies the spirit of the place.

So you can imagine my shock when I recently popped down for a jog and a swim to discover that a good chunk of the white stuff that was so fundamental to my experience of Fremantle had disappeared.

The sand around the northern and southern groynes was OK. But the middle portion was so eroded you had to wade through the water or scale a sandy cliff face to get from one end to the other. The stretches of the beach we were able to walk on in previous years had been overrun by the surging water.

“To be honest, I was shocked when I saw it this state,” beach-lover Andy McGettrick said when I stopped to canvas opinions about the beach erosion.

“I’ve been coming here for years, and I have never seen the water come up so high. It’s a beautiful beach, so it is sad to see it disappearing.”

McGettrick routinely bypasses his local beach, Coogee, to soak up the vibrant atmosphere of South Beach with his partner, Dutch-born Fleur van Doren.

Andy McKettrick and Fleur van Doren.Credit: Mark Naglazas

“I would hate to see it disappear,” van Doren said.

“It’s always busy and there are so many kinds of people who come down here. There are families with children, older people who swim and walk, young people from all around the world who have heard all about South Beach. It’s wonderful to hear so many languages being spoken.”

Hilton resident Nicole Zorn is part of the throng of young mums who crowd the southern and northern groynes of the beach, taking advantage of the calm, crystalline water and mixing with other families. The beach, for this group, is an important part of keeping mind and body healthy.

“The beach is the main reason why we live in the area,” Zorn said as she wrangled her one-year-old, Piper.

“I come here most days during summer. It’s beautiful and peaceful and safe. I probably won’t be around when it isn’t here, but I would hate for future generations not enjoy what we are enjoying.”

I’ve only been coming to the beach regularly for the past three years, yet I’ve seen significant change. For starters, I no longer run along the shoreline because it can barely take a single line of traffic.

Desperate to find out what was going on with South Beach, I made an appointment with Professor Charitha Pattiaratchi of the University of Western Australia’s Oceans Institute.

The world-renowned oceanographer smiled at my fears about the beach’s disappearance and reassured me it would be back.

“The sand moves one way or the other depending on the time of the year,” Pattiaratchi said.

“In the summer the sand moves north, which is why right now the beach is bigger near the groyne at the Fremantle end. And in the winter the sand moves south. It’s like a seesaw.”

Tides also play a role in determining the size of the beach, with the water high right now because we are at the end of the 18.6-year lunar cycle.

“It’s going to get worse until it peaks in 2025. But then you will have 10 years of the water level going down,” Pattiaratchi explained.

A multicultural mecca: locals and visitors gather at Wilson Park to watch the sun dipping into the Indian Ocean.Credit: Mark Naglazas

However, WA’s go-to guru on coastal erosion put a caveat on his optimistic view of the future of South Beach.

“The beach will come back, but it will not be the same as it was before,” he said.

“There will be a loss of sand. Each time the sand moves north and south some of it is left behind.

“The beach will be bigger than it was in the immediate preceding years, but it will not go back to what it was before the cycle began. With every cycle there will be a loss.”

The problems we’re facing with South Beach – indeed, the challenges of erosion faced by all the beaches stretched along the Perth metropolitan area – can be traced back more than a century to the decision of John Forrest’s government to blast the rock bar at the mouth of the Swan River and began the process of building Fremantle Harbour.

It changed the environment of the Perth metropolitan area more profoundly than any other single intervention.

“The construction of the harbour stopped the natural flow of sand from the north to the south and the south to the north,” Pattiaratchi said.

“And each time you intervene to prevent a beach from disappearing, such as building a groyne, you create further problems in another part of the coast.”

The problems caused by construction are now compounded by climate change, with small rises in water level having a major impact on beaches across the globe, and storm surges afflicting sandy beaches already suffering from erosion.

While different methods are being used to save the beaches, such as the artificial reef that has been built on C.Y. O’Connor Beach (the next beach along from South Beach), Pattiaratchi said the only surefire means was to replace the sand, as has been done at the troubled Port Beach.

Pattiaratchi said the problem was that beach nourishment was expensive and must be maintained.

“There will not be enough money in the budgets of councils or state and federal governments to save every beach. Hard choices will need to be made,” he said.

“Many places are practising what they are calling managed retreat. They are telling property owners they have 20 or 30 years, and they will no longer be intervening.”

The beach will return, according to Professor Charitha Pattiaratchi, but not the way it was. There will always be a loss.Credit: Mark Naglazas

In this sense, South Beach is not as endangered as many other beaches around Australia and the rest of the world. It has a substantial setback – it is about 200 metres from the beach to railway line and, a bit further, roads and housing – and Wilson Park could be allowed to revert to sand. It has more to do with maintaining a leisure facility than protecting infrastructure.

“It is a cost-benefit analysis,” Pattiaratchi said.

“Many of the endangered beaches are not a threat to infrastructure or housing. They are about leisure. But leisure is important to a community.

“It is a question of how much we are prepared to pay to retain our beaches.”

A couple of days after my chat with Pattiaratchi, Planning, Transport and Ports Minister Rita Saffioti announced that her government was sinking a further $3.5 million into saving and protecting our beaches as part of Labor’s $33.5 million commitment to managing WA’s 20,000 kilometres of coastline.

“Grants can be used to manage coastal erosion and inundation threats, encourage collaboration between local coastal managers and community organisations and support innovative projects that will ensure the sustainable management of our coastline,” she said.

When I messaged Pattiaratchi about this latest injection of cash, he was dismissive.

“It’s just a drop in the ocean. It’s not enough money to save a single beach,” he said.

“I believe these grants are for preliminary investigations and designs and not really to save a beach.”

While it is impossible to calculate the cost of saving our endangered beaches – there are simply too many variables, including the impact of climate change – I sense that Australians would be prepared to dig deep to mount a rescue, if Andy and Fleur are any guide.

“The beach is one of the reasons why I came to live in Australia,” Fleur said.

“I love that you can live so close to the beach. Or you can drive there in a few minutes. So if I was asked to give something to save the beaches I wouldn’t hesitate. South Beach – all the beaches in Perth – are too important to our lifestyle to let disappear.”

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