New research is showing the spectacular sand dunes made famous in the 1970's film Storm Boy are moving so fast - anyone who lives on the coast should be paying close attention. Experts say climate change is rapidly increasing the rate of erosion of Australia’s longest stretch of coastal dunes and people living on the coast should be thinking about what will happen when their local beach is washed and blown towards their homes.
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00:00 Australia's longest dune field stretches 190 kilometres from the mouth of the Murray River
00:07 to Kingston in South Australia's south east. More than a kilometre wide in places, it's
00:16 a barrier between the pounding waves of the Southern Ocean and the internationally significant
00:22 and protective wetlands of the Coorong.
00:24 So all of our creation stories are formed out of these very sand dunes that we're standing
00:30 within right now.
00:34 But this unique environment is facing an existential threat, and that's a serious worry for anyone
00:39 living close to the coast.
00:42 We're seeing a beach and dune erosion of about three metres per year plus. So every few months
00:48 we come, two or three months and it's gone more and the dunes are massively rapidly changing,
00:55 incredible rates of change.
00:58 Professor Patrick Hesp first came here in the 1970s. He returned 40 years later and
01:04 was shocked by the speed of change.
01:06 We were driving this beach and there'd been a huge amount of erosion and cliffing and
01:10 so we stopped and went up onto the dunes and it was just utterly changed and I was amazed
01:15 by it.
01:18 Ecologist Faith Coleman has been studying the Coorong for 30 years after falling in
01:23 love with the area through Colin Teely's Storm Boy story.
01:28 She says research done by Professor Hesp shows climate change is having a dramatic effect.
01:33 The funny thing about climate change is things are exponential. What's going to happen is
01:37 it's going to get faster and faster and the question is how fast?
01:42 The research indicates the rate of change is being supercharged by rising sea levels,
01:47 stronger wave energy and the erosion of an offshore reef.
01:52 As the shoreline is cut away, the sand is moving inland faster than previously thought.
01:58 We've seen in the last 10 years or less a new dune field develop that's gone up to 200
02:04 metres wide across the older dune system and continuing to expand landwards.
02:11 The dunes are marching towards the Coorong South Lagoon at about 10 metres per year.
02:16 This rapid change is seen as a warning sign for everyone living close to the coast.
02:21 I don't see that government is doing enough anywhere in the world to really mitigate climate
02:28 change and to make coastal communities think more about retreat options for example.
02:36 Nature will have its way. It doesn't matter what we believe in, who we believe in, but
02:44 nature will have its way.
02:47 That's the warning from this remote part of South Australia to those of us living in urban
02:51 coastal communities.
02:52 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
02:56 [BLANK_AUDIO]