Observations of beach recovery in SE Australia following the June 2016 east coast low

In June 2016 a severe east coast low storm impacted the coastline of southeast Australia and resulted in substantial beach erosion extending from southern Queensland to Tasmania. With extreme conditionsforecast six days in advance of the storm, a rapid response coastal monitoring team was able to capture unique regional-scale pre- and post-storm measurements using Airborne Lidar and other technologies. In theensuing six months, observations of the subsequent beach recovery have been undertaken, providing a rare insight as to the rates and magnitude of beach recovery following an extreme storm at the regional scale.Beach recovery observations at six representative embayed beaches along the NSW coastline (Trial Bay, North Haven, Elizabeth, Boomerang, Terrigal-Wamberal and Narrabeen-Collaroy) indicate that the six monthpost-storm period reported here was characterised by substantial recovery of the subaerial beach. This recovery was initially rapid (35% of eroded sand returning in the first three months) but gradually decreasedin rate (51% in the first six months). Recovery of dune systems eroded during the storm on the other hand was initially minor (6% of eroded dune volume returning in three months), but gradually increased in rate(19% in six months). Significant spatial variability in the rate of beach recovery was observed, revealing that embayed beach orientation to the prevailing southerly swell waves is a major control determining beachrecovery rates