{"id":699128,"date":"2026-01-16T04:29:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T04:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/699128\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T04:29:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T04:29:17","slug":"artificial-reefs-among-options-in-coastal-sa-towns-erosion-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/699128\/","title":{"rendered":"Artificial reefs among options in coastal SA town’s erosion battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

A coastal town in SA’s south east is considering options, including artificial reefs, to battle erosion along popular beaches.<\/p>\n

The District Council of Robe has been awarded a total of $130,000 in funding to minimise the impact of erosion at Fox and Hoopers beaches.<\/p>\n

The town’s erosion struggles have been highlighted by recent cliff collapses<\/a>, and plans to replicate the iconic obelisk<\/a>, which is likely to be lost to the sea in the coming decades.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The Robe obelisk is at risk of collapse because of erosion. (ABC South East SA: Sam Bradbrook)<\/p>\n

Council chief executive Nat Traeger said severe weather<\/a> last year meant erosion was significantly outpacing expectations.<\/p>\n

“With those big storms, we got to where we thought we’d be in the year 2050,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Traeger said the study would look at all adaptation pathways around, including dune planting or even retreat.<\/p>\n

“What public and private infrastructure would be at risk?” she said.<\/p>\n

“If council just retreated and did nothing, where would that coastline around that Fox Beach area go?”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

An artificial reef is being used at CY O’Connor beach in WA to mitigate erosion. (ABC News: Nicholas Martyr)<\/p>\n

Team examines all options<\/p>\n

University of Melbourne research fellow in coastal processes Andrew Pomeroy, who is acting as a consultant on the project, said the investigation would also look at dune reconstructions, seawalls, and contemporary solutions, including reef enhancements or the artificial reef option.<\/p>\n

“Everything’s on the table, and then we progressively take things off the table as we look at what we’re trying to do, how we’re trying to do it and the different levers we can pull,” Dr Pomeroy said.<\/p>\n

“Whatever we do in any particular location will have much wider implications.<\/p>\n

“We don’t want to just install a reef at the expense of supplying sand or moving sand movements around. We need to make sure it works in its actual environment.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Artificial reefs<\/a> have been installed in other parts of the country impacted by erosion.<\/p>\n

\"Smiling<\/p>\n

Justin Geldard (centre) has been monitoring the effectiveness of artificial reefs. (ABC News: Kenith Png)<\/p>\n

In Western Australia, an artificial reef at a dog beach was expanded<\/a> in 2024, after an initial installation proved effective.<\/p>\n

University of WA research associate Justin Geldard said artificial reefs were not the only solution, but could be used alongside beach nourishment and other hard engineering measures.<\/p>\n

“It’s more attractive to the public because they can see that positive effect that it’s having,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

he said.<\/p>\n

“The community at CY O’Connor [Beach] have loved the recreation side.<\/p>\n

“It’s created a snorkelling and diving habitat and brought a lot of marine species in.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Artificial reefs can be created in a variety of ways, including concrete structures. (ABC News: Kenith Png)<\/p>\n

Implementing could be difficult<\/p>\n

Coastal engineer Aaron Salyer said artificial reefs broke waves offshore, reducing their impact on the shoreline.<\/p>\n

“It’s kind of finding this balance between allowing some of the wave energy to come in, but taking out the big sting of it,” he said.<\/p>\n

“When you create habitat, you create the ecology, and that has potential flow-on effects for eco-tourism and additional fishing.”<\/p>\n

However, Dr Pomeroy said implementing an artificial reef at Robe could be difficult.<\/p>\n

“You have very small, isolated beach environments,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It becomes quite difficult to implement a reef in that environment relative to larger, very straight coastlines.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Storms last year caused significant damage at Fox Beach. (Supplied: District Council of Robe)<\/p>\n

“There may be other solutions that are more economical, but also the complexity of having success compared to dune work or trying to widen the beaches, or changing our instrument management system.”<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Robe council will use $205,000 in state government funding to install “geo-textile” sandbags at Fox Beach, and $30,000 for sand replenishment.<\/p>\n

“They don’t wash away like sand nourishment does,” Ms Traeger said.<\/p>\n

“That’s going to be a big contribution towards the protection at Fox Beach.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A coastal town in SA’s south east is considering options, including artificial reefs, to battle erosion along popular…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3843],"tags":[210483,1425,2311,210486,728,164068,57374,210485,210484,22012,210482,70,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-699128","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-artificial-reefs","9":"tag-beach","10":"tag-climate-change","11":"tag-coastal-adaptation","12":"tag-environment","13":"tag-environment-protection","14":"tag-erosion","15":"tag-fox-beach","16":"tag-hoopers-beach","17":"tag-limestone-coast","18":"tag-robe","19":"tag-science","20":"tag-uk","21":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115902897603609110","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}