While Victoria has a long history of weather variability such as storms, droughts and floods, climate change is projected to increase to coastal environments through drivers such as sea-level rise, change in wave direction and increases in swell energy and storm tide events (Figure 1). These drivers affect coastal erosion, sediment supply and inundation and are expected to vary geographically across Victoria‘s coastal zone.
Figure 1: Summary of the causes and drivers of coastal hazards
The Victorian Coastal Monitoring Program (VCMP) commenced in 2016-17 with funding phased to 2021-22. The program has established two significant co-investment projects with universities, local government and citizen science volunteer groups:
- The Improving Coastal Erosion Assessments project committed $4.0 million in 2017 from the government to leverage a further $3.8 million from university partners to establish monitoring sites across multiple locations of Victoria’s open coast; Western Port and Corner Inlet to 2021. In 2018, a further $0.2 million was invested from the Port Phillip Bay Fund, with matching contribution of $0.2 million from a university partner, to initiate monitoring at Mount Martha and the Bellarine Peninsula. In 2020 the VCMP was expanded at additional monitoring sites in Port Phillip Bay with an additional $0.625 million government funding and $0.2 million from university partners. A further $0.23 million was provided in 2021 to maintain the VCMP to 30 June 2022.
- The Coastal Wave Monitoring and Sea Level Rise Modelling project committed $0.9 million by government to leverage co-investment of a further $0.9 million from university partners to monitoring Victoria’s coastal wave climate in offshore waters to improve the predictions of future sea level rise, storm surge wave height and wave directions. This offshore program of monitoring was completed 30 December 2021.
In 2020, the VCMP was dually awarded the Victorian Marine and Coastal award and the national Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources Eureka Prize for Innovation in Citizen Science.
There are many projects involved in the VCMP, but each are complementary to provide Victoria with the most comprehensive assessment of coastal processes ever undertaken. View the program design here (PNG, 457.4 KB).
What is being monitored?
The VCMP involves monitoring of wave climate, sediment movement and sediment budgets in priority coastal compartments of Victoria’s open coastline, Western Port Bay and Port Phillip Bay. Knowledge of sediment budgets help us to identify which areas of Victoria’s are likely to lose or gain sediment under sea level rise and changes to wave directions (Figure 2). This assessment is crucial for understanding current processes and predicting future effects to undertake informed coastal adaptation planning and investment.
(b)
To understand how sediment moves in a coastal compartment, monitoring must be undertaken across the entire shoreline (backshore, foreshore, intertidal) and in the adjoining seabed (subtidal) which is underwater (a). Sediment will move perpendicularly back and forwards across the shoreline and adjoining seabed, and longitudinally across the shoreline and adjoining seabed (b).
Play the short video below to see how the volume and extent of beach sediments changed on Warrnambool’s shoreline after a storm surge event in 2014.
Improving coastal erosion assessments on open coast shores
Deakin University (marinemapping.org) and Melbourne University (The Coastal Lab Victorian Coastal Monitoring Program) are leading monitoring of wave dominated shorelines. They are collecting data on the change in height, extent and volume of sediment on beaches and shoreline, and the sediment dynamics in the adjoining sub-tidal waters using a variety of remote sensing imagery techniques and sediment sampling.
Their program involves four themes, with several projects being undertaken concurrently for each theme that will address key gaps and provide benefits for coastal management and adaption planning (Table 1).
Find out more about the open coast program:
- Citizen Scientists are undertaking part of the monitoring using drones, find out more in the Citizen Science drone program brochure (PDF, 3.0 MB)
- Program overview and themes (PDF, 5.2 MB)
- Research project summaries (PDF, 466.5 KB)
- Design, workflow and study locations poster (PDF, 1.7 MB)
To understand more about coastal erosion:
- Read the booklet: Understanding Coastal Erosion (PDF, 5.8 MB)
- Watch the webinar video - The causes of coastal erosion.
Need | Gaps to be filled | Benefits | Example Projects |
Theme 1: Shoreline sediment dynamics | |||
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| UAV Contribution to Coastal Compartments (Pucino et al. 2019) (PDF, 4.1 MB) Hyperspectral Remote Sensing of Coastal Morphodynamics (Pucino et al. 2019) (PDF, 3.5 MB) Shoreline fluxes in Lady Bay, Warrnambool (Bhatt 2019) (PDF, 637.1 KB) Quantifying historic erosion rates along Victoria's Coastline (Konlechner et al. 2019) (PDF, 2.9 MB) Modern Dune Dynamics on the Inverloch Spit (McGuirk et al. 2019) (PDF, 3.1 MB)
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Theme 2: Marine (subtidal) sediment dynamics | |||
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| Deakin Marine Mapping is a group of researchers from Deakin University led by Daniel Ierodiaconou focusing on mapping the seafloor and coastlines of Victoria and beyond, see their website here.
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Theme 3: Coastal compartment modelling and visualisation | |||
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| Coastal Compartment Modelling and Visualisation (Morris 2019) (PDF, 2.2 MB)
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Theme 4: Coastal monitoring using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) & citizen science | |||
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| Victorian Coastal Monitoring Program (Allan 2019) (PDF, 3.7 MB) Citizen Science UAVs for Monitoring Shoreline Change (Allan et al. 2019) Citizen Science and UAVs: How to monitor the Victorian coast (Pucino et al. 2019) (PDF, 3.6 MB) Deakin Marine Mapping is a group of researchers from Deakin University led by Daniel Ierodiaconou focusing on mapping the seafloor and coastlines of Victoria and beyond, see their website here. |
Improving coastal erosion assessments of large embayments (Western Port Bay and Corner Inlet)
Monash University, along with delivery partners Macquarie University, University of Wollongong and University of Melbourne, is leading the monitoring of more sheltered mud flat and vegetated shorelines (mangroves and salt-marsh). Their focus is understanding sediment dynamics and how this influences changes in the extent of mudflats and adjoining saltmarsh and mangrove communities. The project includes improved assessments of coastal acid sulphate soils.
A number of projects have been implemented across four themes which will inform a framework for coastal erosion hazard in Victoria’s large sheltered embayments: geomorphic setting, hydrodynamic drivers, sediment dynamics, and coastal acid sulphate soils.
Take a look at the research project summaries (PDF, 181.6 KB).
These investigations will be complemented by a citizen science monitoring program (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Project themes for the Western Port embayment
This project will focus on Western Port Bay (an international listed Ramsar site and Global Biosphere Reserve) which is a structurally controlled tidal embayment with varied lithologies, alluvial and aeolian sediments and wetland communities which has resulted in a range of coastal and backshore environments. Four sites will be studied which are representative of the coastal compartments in Western Port Bay (Lang Lang, Tooradin, Rhyll and French Island). A fifth site at Corner Inlet embayment will be used to validate model outputs. Corner Inlet is an ecologically important site and listed as a Ramsar wetland which supports internationally significant aquatic and bird species.
The Western Port embayment project has the benefit of being able to utilise long-term monitoring stations first installed in 2000. Read more about the Western Port embayment project (PDF, 1.6 MB).
By combining father monitoring with additional investigations of the sources and sinks of sediments within the embayment, this will enable improved benefits such as modelling and advice on how shorelines may change in the future (Table 2).
Need | Gaps to be filled | Benefits | Example project |
Theme 1: Geomorphic Setting | |||
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| Westernport Bay Coastal wetland geomorphology (Rogers and Saintilan 2019) (PDF, 6.1 MB) |
Theme 2: Hydrodynamic drivers | |||
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Theme 3: Sediment Supply | |||
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| Wave s+ Hydro-Sed (Reef 2019) (PDF, 3.8 MB) Coastal Acid Sulfate Soils (Wong 2019) (PDF, 3.3 MB) |
Theme 4: Citizen Science Monitoring | |||
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| MangroveWatch is a not-for-profit organisation that focuses on the research, education and conservation of mangrove and tidal wetland environments globally. Much of our work is channeled through our flagship program that is built on partnerships between scientists, community volunteers and traditional owners, see MangroveWatchers! |
More information
For more information about the Victorian Coastal Monitoring Program, please email vcmp@delwp.vic.gov.au.
For comprehensive information on climate change and coastal environments, including information about adaptation planning, please visit the National Climate Change Adaption Research Facility website. The website offers a wide range of information materials, tools and datasets for coastal risk assessment and adaptation planning, including CoastAdapt.
Page last updated: 21/04/22