Narrabeen Lagoon is located approximately 16 km north of Sydney’s CBD, within the Warringah Council Local Government Area. The tidally effected part of the estuary has a scale of 100’s of metres. The lagoon entrance is subject to continuous infilling which restricts water exchange between the estuary and the ocean; and in extreme cases closes the lagoon off completely. This in turn effects the entire lagoon system leading to problems with flooding and water quality.
WRL assisted Warringah Council by providing quantitative and independent monitoring of the entrance to Narrabeen Lagoon, with particular focus on short and long term management strategy plans. An Argus station collected digital video images of the lagoon entrance every daylight hour via four cameras mounted on the roof of North Narrabeen Surf Lifesaving Club. These images were analysed at WRL, and the results are made available on the coastal imaging website.
Concurrent work involving the use of RTK DGPS surveying, in situ hydrodynamic measurements and state of the art numerical modelling was undertaken to investigate the morphological behaviour of this intermittent tidal lagoon entrance from scientific, engineering and management perspectives. Links to publications from this project are available here.
