Drifting from the water’s edge
While many of New Zealand’s surf life saving clubs are worried about the water’s edge creeping ever closer, one club is moving further away from it each year.
When the Levin Waita¯rere Surf Life Saving Club building was constructed in 1953, it was close to the top of the high tide mark.
Now it is about 80 metres away from the water, and tucked behind sand dunes, leaving the club with little choice but to rebuild closer to the sea.
The beach in front of the clubroom has been growing an average of 1.7m per year since it was built, chairman Brian Forth said.
‘‘It was set up so you could walk gear straight out on to the beach.’’
But now the beach cannot be monitored from the club, so a portable tower is used down on the beach.
Massey University physical geography senior lecturer Alastair Clement said large amounts of sediment from major rivers in Manawatu¯ and Horowhenua had built the coastline outwards in a process called progradation.
The sediment is deposited along the beaches by the sea, which acts as a conveyer belt.
Progradation is not unusual in New Zealand but the rate at which the beaches in Manawatu¯ and Horowhenua have grown is faster than normal – an average of 1m per year over thousands of years.
Although storms caused short-term erosion, Clement said the rate of progradation meant the beach grew faster than it shrank. The beaches would continue to grow for the foreseeable future, due to the good sediment supply, but the average rate of growth might slow over time.
Forth said the club started the process to build a new clubroom 10 years ago and had a resource consent to do so.
The Horowhenua District Council has made an accretion claim to Land Information New Zealand (Linz) to get a title for the new land that has been created, with the condition that a surf life saving clubroom could be built on it. It was difficult to say when construction would start, as Linz was still processing the claim, Forth said.
Although the new land had caused some issues for the club, Forth said it was ‘‘better than the other option’’ – being situated on an eroding beach.