Coastal Dune Resilience Project – West Busselton

Published on Friday, 24 January 2025 at 3:35:31 PM

Coastal Dune Resilience Project – West Busselton (Vasse Diversion Drain)

The City of Busselton is rehabilitating and enhancing coastal dunes and refurbishing the coastal path along the Vasse Diversion Drain to increase their resilience to coastal erosion and flooding.

Project Objectives

Coastal dunes along Geographe Bay provide both natural coastal defence against erosion and an environmental habitat. The objective of this project is to enhance the capacity of the coastal dunes to resist erosion and to improve the ecological function of this unique coastal habitat.

Project Scope

A hybrid solution of using nature-based techniques on coastal dunes to improve resilience to erosion and adapting existing coastal paths to reduce coastal flooding has been adopted. The capacity of the coastal dunes to resist erosion will be improved by increasing the volume of degraded low-lying dunes. Beach sand for dune rebuilding will be imported to the dunes or relocated from adjacent beaches where ongoing accretion occurs. Selective planting of native species will be undertaken to both increase the resilience of the dune surface to erosion, and to restore or enhance the ecological function of the coastal dune habitat. Refurbishing the coastal path will provide a minimum crest level in certain areas, with improved scour protections against erosion. This also allows path amenity to be improved by widening and resurfacing.

Project Timing

The project will commence 20 January 2025 and is scheduled for completion end of March 2025.

Enquiries

Should you have any queries in relation to the proposal, please contact Daniell, Manager Engineering and Facilities on 08 9781 0379 daniell.abrahamse@busselton.wa.gov.au