The Tweed River Entrance Sand Bypassing Project (TRESBP) is a joint scheme by the New South Wales and Queensland Governments, to intercept coastal sand moving towards the entrance of the Tweed River in northern NSW and southern Queensland, Australia, and move it up the coast in order to meet the following project objectives:
- To establish and maintain a clear navigation channel at the entrance to the Tweed River
- To achieve a continuing supply of sand to the placement areas (southern Gold Coast beaches) at a rate consistent with natural drift rates
The sand bypassing system comprises of a sand collection jetty with an overall length of 450 metres constructed perpendicular to Letitia Spit beach. The system has been designed to operate with up to four jet pumps working together at the same time. The sand slurry produced is transported through a flume to a slurry pit located on shore, which is then pumped through a 400 mm steel pipeline under the Tweed River, to one of two fixed and two temporary outlets in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland beaches.
Pipe network
An excellent overview of the sand bypassing project, including current information about operation of the system, is provided at the TRESBP website. WRL is undertaking this coastal imaging project to assist the TRESBP Team to monitor and manage sand delivery in the vicinity of the Tweed River Entrance. Digital images of the coastline are being captured every daylight hour by a total of sixteen cameras, mounted on the roof of three apartment buildings, and a fourth site atop the Captain Cook Memorial Lighthouse, Point Danger. These images are analysed at WRL, to monitor and quantify beaches changes. The following video, produced by the TRESBP team provides an overview of the project.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This coastal imaging project is funded by TRESBP and is implemented by NSW Trade and Investment in conjunction with the Queensland Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts. Gold Coast City Council makes a financial contribution to TRESBP, which is also supported by the Tweed Shire Council. Deltares assisted WRL to install the Argus coastal imaging system, and is providing proprietary software to facilitate image capture, image transfer and image rectification/merging.
