CANBERRA, March 29 (Xinhua) -- Coastal dune fields in South Australia (SA) are retreating inland from the ocean at an alarming rate, research has found.
In a study published on Thursday, a team from the Beaches and Dunes Systems (BEADS) Laboratory at SA's Flinders University took measurements on the Younghusband Peninsula -- Australia's longest coastal dune field stretching 190 kilometers (km) in the Coorong National Park -- where they discovered accelerated dune movement due to coastal erosion.
Under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, an intergovernmental treaty signed in 1971 for the conservation of wetlands, the Coorong National Park is considered an internationally significant refuge for migratory waders and waterfowl.
The study found that the central region of the Younghusband Peninsula is in a major shoreline erosion phase, having eroded 100 meters since 1980 at an average rate of 1.9 meters per year.
In one case detailed in the study, a new dune field developed in less than five years on the peninsula and has extended landwards more than 100 meters in eight years.
"This is an extraordinary rate of development and, if the shoreline erosion trend continues to expand north and south as it appears to be doing, it will dramatically change the National Park dune system," Patrick Hesp, a co-author of the study and strategic professor of Coastal Studies at Flinders University, said in a media release.
He said the findings should act as a call to action for increased research on coastal processes and particularly the relationship between sea level rise, future climate change and coastal dune systems. ■
