Envi Ronmental Hi Story of Rowes Bay
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ENVI RONMENTAL HI STORY OF ROWES BAY REPORT PREPARED FOR TOWNSVI LLE CI TY COUNCI L By MCG Mabin Tropical Environment al St udies and Geography James Cook Universit y Townsville April 2002 Environmental history of Rowes Bay ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY OF ROWES BAY 1. Introduction This report describes the environmental history of the Rowes Bay foreshore and its hinterland. The study area comprises the 2.3 km of shoreline from the Kissing Point headland, around inner Rowes Bay and north to the RSL Villas, and extends inland for 0.5 km. The original landscape of rocky headland, mudflats and beach, backed by dunes, estuaries, mangrove swamps, stream channels and ancient beach ridges has changed significantly in the 145 years since European settlement began. These changes have been caused by natural processes and human activities, and have resulted from environmental changes both within and external to the Rowes Bay environment. This report documents these changes, and shows how they have influenced the behaviour of the present environment with particular reference to the persistent beach erosion that has been occurring for the last ~45 years. This will provide an important context for planning the future environmental management of Rowes Bay. The report begins with a description of the landforms of the Rowes Bay - Pallarenda area, and an examination of the environmental changes that have occurred in this embayment over the last 6000 years. From this, a pattern of sand movement can be derived, which will enable a long-term sediment budget for the system to be established. This will provide an important initial approximation of the rate of sand supply required to maintain a stable shoreline system. The landscape immediately prior to European settlement (1864) will then be described. This will provide a benchmark from which to measure the scale of subsequent environmental changes. Natural and human-induced environmental changes will be summarised separately, with detailed information being presented in Appendix 1. 2. Data Sources The primary source of environmental change information is from vertical aerial photographs that are available from 1938, 1941, 1952, 1959, 1961, 1965, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974, 1976, 1978, 1981, 1985, 1991, and 1995. These have been obtained from AUSLIG, TCC, BPA, and Queensland State Government as detailed in Appendix 3. Information from prior to 1938 is very sketchy, but has been complied from geological and topographic maps, hydrographic charts, historic maps and photographs, meteorological records, and literature on the history of Townsville. These resources are listed below in Section 9. 3. Landform History of Rowes Bay 3.1 Introduction The Rowes Bay study area forms the southern part of a 7 km long embayment between the Kissing Point headland and Many Peaks Range, and over the last 6000 years a suite of coastal landforms has accumulated here. The long-term history of these landforms provides an important context for understanding the recent environmental history of Rowes Bay. 3.2 Landforms of the Rowes Bay - Pallarenda Embayment The natural landforms of the area have been mapped and described by various authors (Hopley and Murtha, 1975; Trezise et al, 1986 & 1989; Trezise and Stephenson, 1990), and these are shown in Figure 1. The main landforms present are sand ridges and intervening swales that occur in belt extending up to 2.75 km inland from the present shoreline. Other landforms include the modern shoreline features of intertidal mudflats, beach, dunes, sand spits and estuarine areas at the mouths of streams, while further inland are supra-tidal mudflats, mangrove and freshwater swamps, and stream courses. At the foot of Castle Hill and Many Peaks Range are small alluvial fans. Most of 1 Environmental history of Rowes Bay Figure 1 Landforms of the Rowes Bay area these landforms remain today as much of the area is within the Town Common Environmental Park. However, construction of the airport runways has removed ~75 ha of beach ridges and swales, while the Rowes Bay Golf Course and suburban development at Pallarenda, Rowes Bay and Belgian Gardens, has partly modified some of the landforms. 3.2.1 Sand Ridges and Swales The sand ridges consist of low sand accumulations up to 300 m wide, rising 3.5 – 6 m above mean sea level (asl), and aligned parallel to the present shoreline. Between these are low-lying swales at about 2 – 2.5 m asl. These depressions are usually composed of much finer mud sediments, and are typically occupied by swamps and stream courses, or nearer the present shoreline, supra-tidal 2 Environmental history of Rowes Bay mudflats and mangrove swamps. Figure 2 shows a profile across the ridge and swale topography in Rowes Bay where at least seven ridges in two sets occur behind the modern beach. The innermost ridge set (BR 1-4) near Old Common Road is up 1.7 km from the present shoreline. These subdued landforms are only 3 ± 3.5 m asl, and appear to have been partly eroded, with sand in-filling the swales between these older ridges. The outer ridge set (BR 5 ± 7) are much better preserved landforms that rise more than 3 m above the intervening swales, and more than 5 m asl. Their extra height may be due to deposition of wind-blown dune sand. The suburbs of Pallarenda and Rowes Bay have been built on the youngest of the beach ridges (BR #7). 6 B e l g i a n G a r d e n s c e m e t e r y 5 C a p e P a l l a r e n d a R o a d O l d C o m m o n R o a d 4 B R 5 B R 6 B R 7 3 B R 1 B R 2 B R 3 B R 4 M o d e r n H i g h e s t b e a c h r i d g e T i d e s 2 d r a i n 1 O l d e r B e a c h R i d g e s Y o u n g e r B e a c h R i d g e s 0 M u d f l a t s - 1 - 2 1 8 0 0 1 7 0 0 1 6 0 0 1 5 0 0 1 4 0 0 1 3 0 0 1 2 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 9 0 0 8 0 0 7 0 0 6 0 0 5 0 0 4 0 0 3 0 0 2 0 0 1 0 0 0 - 1 0 0 - 2 0 0 D i s t a n c e f r o m s h o r e l i n e ( m ) Figure 2: Profile across the Rowes Bay beach ridges (BR = beach ridge). While the overall alignment of the ridges parallels the modern shoreline, in detail the inner parts of the ridges curve around to the northwest and north-northwest. From this, it is interpreted that the sand ridges are beach ridges that were formed by the northward extension of sand spits as wave action moved sand along the shoreline towards the Many Peaks Range. This line of hills acted as a barrier, trapping the sand and causing the shoreline to prograde eastwards as the shallow waters of the embayment were filled with sediment. Once the sand ridges had built out to Cape Pallarenda, progradation would have ceased, as the Many Peaks Range no longer acted as a barrier to sand transport. However, sediment supply to the embayment would not have changed. Sand entering past Kissing Point would have moved north along the beach to Cape Pallarenda, and then out of the embayment. Radiocarbon dating (Trezise et al, 1989) indicates that the overall period of accumulation of the ridges occurred between about 6000 and 1000 years ago. However, the presence of the distinct beach ridges separated by broad swales, suggests sand delivery to the embayment may not have been continuous. There were probably periods of enhanced sand supply entering the embayment when the ridges would have been forming rapidly. This may have been caused by periods of greater wave energy, and/or times of increased sand delivery to the coast. In addition, the morphological difference between the older and younger beach ridges in Rowes Bay may indicate that there may have been a significant time break between the deposition of these ridge sets. 3.2.2 Modern Beach Ridge The modern beach ridge is a much smaller feature than the older beach ridges, being only ~100 m wide, and rising to ~4 m asl. It has been formed directly on the front of beach ridge #7 with only a small shallow depression marking the boundary between the two landforms (see Figure 2). The boundary between the active beach face and the present mudflats is marked by a very abrupt change in slope and sediment type. Where the foreshore area remains undisturbed, small dunes that increase in size northwards back the beach. The Rowes Bay-Pallarenda Road has been built along the top of 3 Environmental history of Rowes Bay the ridge, and much of it has been landscaped for park areas. At its southernmost extent in Rowes Bay, the modern beach formerly consisted of several small, highly mobile sand spits at the mouths of two small creeks (see Section 6). The modern beach ridge has been in place for at least ~1000 years, having formed when the older and younger beach ridges had built out to fill the embayment to the end of Many Peaks Range.