Narrowneck Reef: Northern Gold Coast beach protection strategy
Professor Rodger Tomlinson, Director, Griffith Centre for Coastal Management:
The Narrowneck Reef is a geotextile bag reef and its primary objective was for coastal protection.
Angus Jackson, Principal Coastal Engineer, International Coastal Management:
The road across Narrowneck was built in 1921 by the Main Roads Department. It was the Pacific
Highway to Sydney, but the trouble is to miss the river they pushed it out onto the dunes, so it has
always been an area that’s very narrow.
In 1999 my company won a tender for the Northern Gold Coast beach beach protection strategy
which had a number of elements. The primary one was nourishment and it was really a repeat of
what was done in 1974. We had the new control structure which was built in 1986 which was the
Gold Coast Seaway so what we wanted was another control point just this side of Surfers Paradise.
We looked at groynes. We looked at beach dewatering, widening the dunes and the one that came
out best was a submerged artificial reef without the added bonuses of surfing and diving. It was
clearly the best solution. Why a reef, a reef is a coastal engineers dream in a way in that you can
reduce the wave energy without having to stop all the wave energy and a reef does that perfectly by
breaking the waves and dissipating the energy. We’ve constructed a structure that you can’t see but
it’s constantly reducing sand transport and the storm cut so that we have a wider beach, a more
stable beach. So life guards can use the stability ensured by the reef to plant their flags in the best
spot.
The Australian dredging industry was developed on the Gold Coast. McQuade won the contract for
dropping the sand bags. He had brought in a split hulled hopper barge that was developed
specifically for this type of work. He hired local Gold Coast boys who understood the surf and they
would actually bring the dredge in between sets and they would position it exactly right where they
wanted it and they would have someone looking behind them to check when the next wave would
be breaking over the stern.
Frank Goetsch, Gold Coast City Council, Beach Surveyor 1961-2004
It was a lot of fun building that. It was built on tiers so that the boat would come in and drop a bag,
move out and we would then dredge sand up into the bag and it was pulled on board and then it
would come out and the bag was dropped out through the bottom. It was just a endless job keeping
up with the number of bags and then when it was finished we had to do monitoring to see what was
happening both up the beach and down the beach and to work it all in together we were very, very
busy.
Angus Jackson, Principal Coastal Engineer, International Coastal Management:
The difference between a geotextile structure and a concrete or rock structure it the type of growth.
We get a very soft growth which is safe for surfers, but it is also better for diving and better for the
environment because we get a much more diverse habitat.
In 10 metres of water we are getting kelps. We are getting turtles and we are getting dolphins. We
took one of the top marine biologists in Australia for a swim out there one day and before he went
into the water he said, ‘It’s just going to be another fish attractor, I can tell you that now Angus.’
When he came back he said, ‘You’ve done it the geotextile is what makes the big difference’.
Professor Rodger Tomlinson, Director, Griffith Centre for Coastal Management:
From the data that’s been collected over the last 10 years from video cameras and other
measurements that have been taken at Narrowneck, clearly show that it’s been a highly successful
device or structure for maintaining the health of the beach in terms of the beach width and that’s
been its primary objective