PA3660-Coastal Hazard Assessment - 4 arakoon

                                                  Project related




3               Historical Aerial Photograph Analysis
Aerial photography has been reviewed to understand the historical extents of beach movement at the site.
Figure 3-1 to Figure 3-8 show the aerial photographs for 1972, 1974, 1981, 1988, 1994, 1999, 2004 and
2017 together with the toe of the frontal dune captured by hand-held GPS in January 2023.

The beach was in an eroded state in 1971 and 1974, which was due to a high number of tropical cyclones
impacting the south-east Queensland coastline during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The 1974 aerial
photograph shows the beach in its most eroded state in the photographic record and outcrops of indurated
sand (i.e. coffee rock) can be seen adjacent to the dune vegetation.

From the 1981 photograph onwards the beach is seen to be recovering. In 2017 the beach was at its most
accreted state however from 2017 to 2024 Sunshine Beach has experience some erosion. Therefore,
Sunshine beach is currently in a recovery phase and its current position show in Figure 2-1 (based on
Nearmaps imagery from November 2023). This is evident through the seaward and landward
progradation of primary and secondary dune vegetation.

There were 18 tropical cyclones within 200 kilometres of the site between 1960 and 1979, seven tropical
cyclones between 1980 and 1999, and three tropical cyclones since 2000. The reduced number of
tropical cyclones affecting the southeast Queensland region since 1980 is reflected in the beach recovery
observed during this period.




Figure 3-1 1972 Aerial Photograph (qimagery.information.qld.gov.au)




11 April 2024        4-6 ARAKOON CRESCENT, SUNSHINE BEACH             PA3660-RHD-XX-ZZ-RP-Z-0001   10