Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Port Phillip Bay, Australia, is a marine embayment with a narrow (3.2 km)
entrance from Bass Strait to the south, a spring tide range of only about 60 cm,
and weak nearshore tidal currents. Seasonally alternating longshore drift here is
seen on the east coast of this bay as a dominance of northward drift in the summer
half-year (November to April), lowering and narrowing beaches at their southern
ends and widening and raising them at their northern ends. In the winter half-year,
between May and October, this is reversed when the dominant waves arrive from
the NW, drifting beach sediment southward. The sequence is illustrated on Black
Rock beach (Fig. 4.20 ).
Beach renourishment projects here must be designed to allow for the seasonal
alternation and the possibility that the gains at each end of a beach compartment
Fig. 4.20 Dominant
longshore drift on the beach
at Black Rock, on the NE
coast of Port Phillip Bay,
Australia, is northward
during the summer half-
year (November-April) and
southward during the winter
half-year (May-October).
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