Examples of coastal areas where there is a lot of conflict of interests are the sandy coasts of Glenelg, and also the Port Adelaide Estuaries. The Adelaide coastline is highly developed with houses and roads occupying a large proportion

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“Describe the reasons for conflicts of interest in coastal zones, and discuss the management strategies relating to conflicts of interest in at least two coastal locations.”

Coasts range from the rocky shores and sandy beaches to extensive calm water mud flats, seagrass and mangrove habitats. Coastal and marine environments are a valuable community resource and are of great biological and economic value to the area. Coastal areas are very complex eco-systems which rely on a number of different processes and systems. Humans are constantly disrupting these processes by developing and taking part in recreation in coastal areas. Alterations can have harmful results and disturb the dynamic equilibrium of the natural processes that occur there. Therefore there is now a need for constant human input into coastal systems in order to artificially maintain them. This creates a lot of conflicts of interest between groups about what should be done about the problem in terms of the sustainability of the environment versus our societal need. Examples of coastal areas where there is a lot of conflict of interests are the sandy coasts of Glenelg, and also the Port Adelaide Estuaries.

The Adelaide coastline is highly developed with houses and roads occupying a large proportion of the original dune system. Development along the coastline, particularly in Glenelg, has had many detrimental effects on the coastal system. Coastal dunes have been leveled and covered with roads, houses and buildings and these developments have removed the valuable source of land, allowing for severe wave erosion to occur. To protect the houses and other structures that were built in the coast, concrete walls were put in place at the back of the beach. However, this made the situation worse as the sea wall often caused the beach infront of it to erode. There is conflict about whether development should be ceased in Glenelg to reduce the human interference with the dynamic equilibrium of the coast. This would have many environmental gains, but the tourism, recreation, local shops etc. will suffer.

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Along the Adelaide coast sand gradually drifts northwards, eroding the southern metropolitan beaches such as Glenelg, due to the north-south alignment of the beach and the predominance of south-westerly winds. There is little sand input to the beach through natural processes, which is causing sand and dune levels to drop. Maintaining beach levels is currently the responsibility of the Coast and Marine Section, Environment Protection Authority of the Department of Environment, Heritage and Aboriginal Affairs (DEHAA), which is a government funded organisation. They are responsible for putting a number of management strategies in place and for the construction of artificial ...

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