Adelaide’s Living Beaches – A Strategy for 2005-2025

Since a 1997 review the Coast Protection Board has carried out a range of offshore and land-based sand source investigations. Whilst a large reserve of suitable sand has been identified in the Mount Compass area, estimated to be sufficient to supply Adelaide’s beaches for hundreds of years at current replenishment rates, the need for washing to remove clay and the supply costs for this sand are much higher than for sand from within Adelaide’s beach system.
The cost of managing Adelaide’s beaches continues to grow because of dwindling local sand sources, seagrass loss, rising sea levels and the need to bypass sand around the harbours at Holdfast Shores and Adelaide Shores. Based on the effectiveness of existing strategies, input from the community and a series of modelling and feasibility studies, the Department for Environment and Heritage has developed Adelaide’s Living Beaches: A Strategy for 2005–2025.