Posted on September 15, 2025
Severe weather events rendered the famous strip unrecognisable and left properties vulnerable.
The iconic sandy white beaches of the Gold Coast are still recovering over six months after being left battered and bruised by consecutive severe weather events that rendered the famous strip unrecognisable.
In March, Cyclone Alfred badly damaged the city’s beaches, the first time a cyclone has directly hit the region in over 50 years, with effects still seen up and down the 52km stretch of coastline.
Gold Coast residents who stepped outside the morning after Alfred found the beaches seemingly washed away, with approximately 4 million cubic metres of sand lost to the storm.
Deep gouges and new undercut cliffs running parallel along the sand dunes also created access issues to popular swimming and surfing locations.
In July, Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate said it would take two years to “recover from what Alfred did to us”.
The timeline has since blown out to three years, as of September.
Timeline for beach recovery has since been pushed out to three years.
Bond University Associate Professor Daryl McPhee told AAP that returning beaches to “normal” by 2028 defies logic.
“It assumes no serious erosion events happen between now and then,” he said.
“Choosing a static point in a dynamic system is destined to fail. Ongoing works would be expected to run into the hundreds of millions.
“Nature always wins.”
What is being done
In an effort to restore the coastline, a 7.7-kilometre underground pipeline was switched on in April, pumping sand to Main Beach, Narrowneck and Surfers Paradise.
Dredging barges have also been operating offshore as part of the Council’s Beach nourishment plan.
A rock bag seawall was built at Currumbin Beach to stop waves and tides from washing away sand near Vikings Surf Club.
Geobags filled with sand were placed at Surfers Paradise and are intended to remain in place for two years while the beaches naturally restore themselves.
Tallebudgera and Currumbin Creeks are dredged every year during the winter and spring seasons to provide sand nourishment to nearby beaches, according to Council.
Dredging barges have also been operating offshore as part of the Councils Beach nourishment plan.
The sand is then pumped around Burleigh Headland, Burleigh Beach and Palm Beach, where the council said natural processes then allow the sand to travel north and nourish other beaches along the coastline.
“Beaches are vital to the Gold Coast way of life and contribute around $3.4 billion to the local economy each year,” Tate said at the time.
“Our dredging and beach nourishment programs ensure the Gold Coast’s beaches are in the best condition possible for swimmers and surfers.
“As well as keeping the beaches pristine, the nourishment program also protects community infrastructure from destructive coastal erosion.”
Community-led volunteer programs, such as Our Beach, also focus on sand dune maintenance and restoration to help naturally curb erosion.
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate said Council’s nourishment program protects community infrastructure from destructive coastal erosion.
Bond University coastal erosion researcher Mark Ellis told AAP that the forces reshaping shorelines are becoming more extreme, more frequent, and more difficult to manage.
“Are they pushing the proverbial uphill? I would say yes,” he says of efforts to mitigate erosion.
He questioned whether council should keep shelling out for post-disaster beach reconstruction and building sea walls and groynes that could contribute to further erosion.
“At the end of the day, vertical sea walls protect property; they don’t protect beaches, and they won’t be able to hold back the sea,” he said.
Coastal erosion an ongoing issue
Coastal erosion is not new in the Gold Coast area, with parts of the coast subject to metres of retreating beach fronts every year.
Gold Coast City Council said much of the city was built close to the ocean “before we fully understood how much the coastline can change”.
At Main Beach, the coastline has retreated by 0.9 metres per year on average since 1988, according to Geoscience Australia.
Currumbin Beach was hit hard by costal erosion after Cyclone Alfred.
At Moondarewa at The Spit, the median annual position of the shoreline has moved over a total distance of 146 metres, with the coastline retreating by 2.3 metres per year on average since 1988.
Even more alarmingly, at nearby Fingal Head in far north NSW, the region has retreated by a shocking 2.5 metres per year on average since 1988.
“The most vulnerable coasts are those made up of unconsolidated sediments, such as beaches, dunes and sand cliffs, on open coasts that experience net longshore drift of sediment and on the shores of coastal lakes and lagoons,” Geoscience Australia said.
“Around the Australian coast, nearly 39,000 buildings are located within one hundred metres of ‘soft’ shorelines and are at risk from accelerated erosion due to sea-level rise and changing climate conditions (as at 2011).”
