Award win for coastal planning work

Work to better understand the risks to Broome’s iconic coastline has been recognised with a national award.

The Shire of Broome with consultants Baird Australia and Nyambu Buru Yawuru were joint winners of the Award for Planning and Management at the 2019 Australian Coastal Awards for “building resilience through a methodical coastal planning and management process”.

The award recognises the coastal planning and management program the Shire has implemented in the past five years, including identifying areas at risk from coastal hazards and developing adaptation strategies in response.

The program has been made possible through the WA Planning Commission and Department of Transport.

Broome Shire President, Harold Tracey, says Broome’s coastline is among its most important assets and it’s exciting that work to understand and protect it has been recognised nationally.

Some of the outcomes include the new rock seawall at Town Beach to protect a valuable community asset.

The Shire has also teamed with Yawuru to undertake shoreline monitoring across Broome, including using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle to understand the effect of coastal processes on Cable Beach.

The footage has been used to generate a 3D image of the beach and dune system for comparison with earlier and future surveys to understand rates of accretion and erosion in the dune and beach system.