Southeast Division

Abstract

The southeast division commences at Fraser Island and extends down the southeast coast to Wilsons Promontory, across eastern Bass Strait and along the east Tasmanian coast down to South East Cape, a total shoreline distance of 4446 km. In doing so it shifts from a humid sub-tropical to a humid temperate climate, while the coast remains dominated by moderate to occasionally high southerly swell and micro-tides, resulting in predominately WD beaches. The Eastern Highlands parallel the mainland coast, and numerous small rivers and streams flow to the coast into estuaries building bayhead deltas with very limited modern bedload supply to the coast. Longer beaches in southeast Queensland and northern NSW give way to shorter embayed beaches in the south and Tasmania, apart from Gippsland’s Ninety Mile Beach. Sediment transport is to the north, interrupted and contained in the south while bypassing headlands in the north to its ultimate sink at Fraser Island and beyond. This chapter reviews the physical and biological processes operating along the coast together with the beach and barrier systems.