Background - Collaroy-Narrabeen ARGUS system
Collaroy/Narrabeen Beach is located 16 km north of Sydney’s Central Business District, within Warringah Council Local Government Area. The beach is approximately 3.6 km in length from Collaroy Surf Club in the south to the entrance of Narrabeen Lagoon in the north. The Collaroy/Narrabeen embayment is characterised by having the most intense and highly capitalised shoreline development in Warringah. Development along the beach is further characterised as the third most at risk nationally from coastal processes. Several processes cause movement of sand within the Collaroy/Narrabeen Beach system. These include natural processes such as longshore movement of sediment, offshore movement of sediment into deeper water by wave action, and lagoon infilling by wave and tidal action, as well as human activities such as Narrabeen Lagoon Entrance Clearance Works.
Between July 2004 and July 2008 the Water Research Laboratory (WRL), a facility of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of New South Wales, assisted Warringah Council by providing quantitative and independent monitoring of coastal processes at Collaroy-Narrabeen Beaches, with particular focus on Precinct 3 as described in the Collaroy/Narrabeen Coastline Management Plan (1997).
Digital images of the coastline were captured every daylight hour by five cameras mounted on the roof of a beach-front building, approximately 50 m above sea level. These images were then analysed at WRL, to measure changes to the coastline. The results of this monitoring were detailed in six-monthly paper reports, presentations to Warringah Council and in real-time via the world-wide-web.
The monitoring images, animations, beach width records and data reports summarising morphological and shoreline trends at Narrabeen-Collaroy between 2004 and 2008 are available on this website can be provided to interested parties upon request.
