A multi-decade dataset of monthly beach profile surveys and inshore wave forcing at Narrabeen, Australia

Abstract

Long-term observational datasets that record and quantify variability, changes and trends in beach morphology at sandy coastlines together with the accompanying wave climate are rare. A monthly beach profile survey program commenced in April 1976 at Narrabeen located on Sydney's Northern Beaches in southeast Australia is one of just a handful of sites worldwide where on-going and uninterrupted beach monitoring now spans multiple decades. With the Narrabeen survey program reaching its 40-year milestone in April 2016, it is timely that free and unrestricted use of these data be facilitated to support the next advances in beach erosion-recovery modelling. The archived dataset detailed here includes the monthly subaerial profiles, available bathymetry for each survey transect extending seawards to 20 m water depth, and time-series of ocean astronomical tide and inshore wave forcing at 10 m water depths, the latter corresponding to the location of individual survey transects. In addition, on-going access to the results of the continuing monthly survey program is described.

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OPEN

SUBJECT CATEGORIES

Civil engineering

Physical oceanography

Geomorphology

Received: 15 December 2015

Accepted: 01 March 2016

Published: 12 April 2016

A multi-decade dataset of monthly beach prole surveys and inshore wave forcing at Narrabeen, Australia

Ian L. Turner1, Mitchell D. Harley1, Andrew D. Short2, Joshua A. Simmons1, Melissa A. Bracs1, Matthew S. Phillips1 & Kristen D. Splinter1

Long-term observational datasets that record and quantify variability, changes and trends in beach morphology at sandy coastlines together with the accompanying wave climate are rare. A monthly beach prole survey program commenced in April 1976 at Narrabeen located on Sydneys Northern Beaches in southeast Australia is one of just a handful of sites worldwide where on-going and uninterrupted beach monitoring now spans multiple decades. With the Narrabeen survey program reaching its 40-year milestone in April 2016, it is timely that free and unrestricted use of these data be facilitated to support the next advances in beach erosion-recovery modelling. The archived dataset detailed here includes the monthly subaerial proles, available bathymetry for each survey transect extending seawards to 20 m water depth, and time-series of ocean astronomical tide and inshore wave forcing at 10 m water depths, the latter corresponding to the location of individual survey transects. In addition, on-going access to the results of the continuing monthly survey program is described.

Design Type(s) time series design observation design

Measurement Type(s) beach morphology

Technology Type(s) topographic surveyFactor Type(s)

Sample Characteristic(s) Narrabeen sandy beach

1Water Research Laboratory, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UNSW Australia, Sydney, NSW

2052, Australia. 2School of Geosciences, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia. Correspondence and

requests for materials should be addressed to I.L.T. (email: mailto:[email protected]

Web End [email protected] ).

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Background & Summary

Long-term datasets that record and quantify the variability, changes and trends in morphology observed at sandy beaches are rare. A monthly beach prole survey program that commenced in April 1976 at Narrabeen located on Sydneys Northern Beaches in southeast Australia (Fig. 1) is one of a limited number of sites globally where on-going and uninterrupted beach monitoring now spans multiple decades and the use of these data has been reported in the published literature (Table 1; refs 116).

In the 1970s and 1980s the growing database of beach surveys at Narrabeen was key to the pioneering work by Australian coastal geomorphologists that resulted in the formulation of the Morphodynamic Beach State Model17, which today remains the standard classication scheme used by coastal scientists worldwide to describe different natural sandy beach states, their characteristic morphodynamic process signatures and associated wave and sediment environmental controls1727. During the 1990s related studies at Narrabeen included a focus on surfzone rip currents and the emergence of new insight to the associated hazards to beach swimmers28,29.

At the turn of the 21st Century the record of beach changes at Narrabeen had extended to sufcient length that longer-term cycles and underlying trends in beach behaviour began to be revealed30,31. This

prompted signicant new interest in the wider use of the Narrabeen survey dataset to further identify and explore potential linkages between regional-scale climatic forcing and sandy coastline response3236.

At the same time, recognition within the research community that regional-scale wave climates can be expected to change and sea levels in the coming decades will continue to rise37,38 helped strengthen the

awareness of the fundamental importance of sustained coastline monitoring programs. In particular, the monthly observations from Narrabeen provided an all-too-rare data resource to calibrate and test new

3330S

3339S

3348S

3357S

10S

25S

40S

Figure 1. (a) Aerial photo (source: NSW Department of Lands) of the Narrabeen embaymentshowing the locations of the ve monthly survey transects (PF1, PF2, PF4, PF6, and PF8), depth contours at 2.5 m intervals, and the local alongshore coordinate system relative to the northern headland; (b) the beach with respect to the Sydney coastline and the location of the Sydney waverider buoy; (c) map of Australia (adapted from ref. 35).

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N

Turimetta Beach

Narrabeen -Collaroy

Beach

PF1

PF2

Waverider Buoy

Narrabeen Beach

Long Reef Beach

PF4

PF6

PF8

SYDNEY

15106E 15112E 15118E 15124E 15130E

Collaroy Beach

Fishermans Beach

AUSTRALIA

Sydney

Long Reef

Point

110 E 120E 130E 160E

140E 150E

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Site Surveys undertaken Example publications

Duck (USA) Biweekly beach proles (1981)Argus images (1986)

Rhode Island (USA) Monthly beach proles (1962)

Egmond aan Zee (The Netherlands)

Annual beach proles (1964)

Argus images (1998)

Weekly-seasonal beach proles (20012004)

Noordwijk (The Netherlands)

Annual beach proles (1964)

Argus images (1995)Monthly 3D dGPS (20012004)

Lubiatowo (Poland) Monthly beach proles (1983)

Narrabeen-Collaroy (Australia) Refer Table 2 refer text

Moruya (Australia) Monthly beach proles (1972)

Hasaki (Japan) Daily beach proles (1987)

Table 1. Example coastal sites worldwide with ongoing multi-decadal and high resolution coastal monitoring programs (primary source52).

models aimed at developing better prediction tools of present and future variability and changes along sandy coastline worldwide3947.

The monthly beach prole survey program at Narrabeen will reach its 40-year milestone in April 2016. It is therefore timely to facilitate, through publication of the dataset, the unrestricted use of this resource by as wide a cross-section of the coastal research community as possible. The complete archived dataset described and detailed here includes the monthly subaerial proles, bathymetries and time-series of astronomical tide and offshore wave forcing transformed to the inshore location corresponding to each of the individual survey transects.

It is envisaged that open and easy access to these data may provide a new stimulus to coastal morphodynamic modellers worldwide to develop, test and (it is hoped) signicantly advance the next generation of beach erosion-recovery hindcasting and forecasting tools. As a discipline, our ability to predict anticipated coastal changes in the context of a changing climate is presently in its relative infancy. In the meantime, as the current custodians of this valuable resource it is the authors intention that collection of monthly prole data at Narrabeen will continue for the foreseeable future, as our contribution to generations who follow. In addition to the complete and archived dataset that accompanies this publication, access details are also provided to a live online Narrabeen monitoring program repository, where on-going monthly prole surveys will continue to be updated.

Methods

The full archived dataset comprises:

Monthly cross-shore subaerial prole surveys at the ve locations where these have been continued from 1976 up to the present time;

Cross-shore bathymetry transects for each of the ve survey prole lines extending to 20 m water depth;

Hourly local inshore signicant wave height, peak wave period and mean wave direction (Hs,Tp, Dir) at 10 m water depth immediately seawards of each of the ve survey transects, derived from the transformation of measured deepwater waves and gap-lled using a newly-available wave hindcast; and

Astronomical tide at a frequency of 15 min.

To coincide with this publication, and in addition to the accompanying archived dataset spanning 19762016 [Data Citation 1], unrestricted access is now also available to an online live data repository located at http://narrabeen.wrl.unsw.edu.au

Web End =http://narrabeen.wrl.unsw.edu.au containing additional information and resources, including: all the historical as well as newly acquired prole surveys updated each month, a range of survey data visualisation tools; the lookup table (MATLAB software code) used to transform deep to inshore waves specic to the location of each survey transect, and the contact details to external organisations (to which the authors have no afliation) where additional wave and water-level information may be requested.

Site description

The coastline of southeastern Australia includes over 700 embayed sandy beaches averaging 1.3 km in length separated by rocky headlands48. The 3.6 km-long Narrabeen-Collaroy embayment (hereafter simply referred to as Narrabeen) is situated within the Northern Beaches region of metropolitan Sydney. Locally, the sandy beach that spans the entire embayment is referred to as Narrabeen beach towards the north and Collaroy beach in the south, with the small section of beach adjacent to the prominent headland at the extreme southern end called Fishermans beach (Fig. 1).

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The beach sediments at Narrabeen were deposited as a regressive barrier in the mid-Holocene approximately 300 m landward of the present-day shoreline. The barrier subsequently prograded through a series of foredune ridges, with the most seaward ridge of the modern embayment dated at 3 ka. The granulometry is approximately uniform along the beach and characterized by ne to medium quartz sand (D500.3 mm) with ~30% carbonate fragments. A lagoon now backs the northern half of the barrier and is connected to the ocean via a shallow narrow (~50 m-wide) inlet at the embayments northern extremity that intermittently opens and closes to the ocean49.

The adjacent headlands and curvature of the embayment result in a distinctive alongshore wave energy gradient. Dissipative-intermediate beach conditions typically prevail in the north, transitioning to lower energy and intermediate-reective beach conditions towards the south. The northern end of Narrabeen is characterised by single-bar rhythmic bar-beach (RBB) to transverse bar-rip (TBR) intermediate beach states and a subaerial berm that varies up to 80 m in width, backed by a vegetated foredune up to 9 m in height above mean sea level (MSL). At the southern end of the embayment urban development has encroached on to much of the foredunes, which reach only 3 to 4 m in height, and the beach consists of a berm that varies up to 60 m in width and a single-bar system that tends towards the lower-energy low-tide terrace (LTT) and reective beach states. Tides are microtidal and semidiurnal with a mean spring tidal range of 1.3 m.

The deepwater wave climate for the Sydney region is of moderate to high wave energy (mean Hs1.6 m and Tp10 s) and dominated by persistent long period swell waves from a SSE direction. These swell waves are generated from mid-latitude cyclones that propagate approximately 59 times per month across the southern Tasman Sea, south of mainland Australia50. Superimposed on these background swell waves are storm events that are typically dened for this region by a signicant wave height threshold of 3 m, corresponding to the 0.95 quantile51. These storm waves are derived from a number of sources and directions: tropical cyclones from the northeast, east-coast lows from the east and intensied mid-latitude cyclones from the south. The wave climate exhibits a mild seasonal cycle, with high-energy mid-latitude cyclones and east-coast lows more prominent in the Austral winter months and low-energy short-period seas derived from local north-easterly sea-breezes more prominent in the Austral summer51. At inter-

annual time scales, the wave climate is inuenced by the El Nio/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with La Nia periods typically having a more energetic and easterly wave climate and El Nio periods a less energetic and more southerly wave climate32,33,36. The distinct wave energy gradient in the local shallow-

water wave climate at Narrabeen is to a large degree a result of the sheltering of southerly waves by the1.5 km Long Reef Point headland that forms the embayments southern extremity. Numerical wave modeling33 indicates breaking wave height is approximately 30% higher at the northern end compared to the southern end for average wave conditions. This situation is reversed, however, for northeast waves, with breaking wave heights approximately 30% larger in the south relative to the north. An equivalent reversal in the wave angle of incidence is also observed, with southerly waves resulting in northerly-directed alongshore currents and northeast waves resulting in southerly-directed alongshore currents.

Monthly beach prole surveys and bathymetry transects

The beach monitoring program at Narrabeen can be divided into two distinct periods: the rst three decades when a simple and traditional survey technique was employed; and from 2004 onwards when the monitoring program was signicantly expanded, and the use of new and emerging survey technologies have been progressively implemented. A full history of the beach monitoring program at Narrabeen is detailed in refs 52,53. A time-line and summary of the various survey methods employed is presented below.

19762006: historical prole surveys. The years between 1976 and 2006 constitute the period of conventional prole line surveys undertaken by Professor Andrew Short and volunteers of the Coastal Studies Unit, University of Sydney employing the Emery method54. This simple, rapid and low-cost technique uses a measuring tape for cross-shore distance, and vertical elevation changes are calculated using line-of-sight between two graded rods and the horizon. Commencing with the landward rod on a xed benchmark, the distance between the two rods is rst measured using the measuring tape. The change in elevation between the two rods is then calculated by using the line-of-sight with the horizon and markings on the rods as a reference. This process is repeated at each subsequent measurement point along the entire length of the cross-shore prole line. A detailed validation of these historical survey data is provided in the `Technical Validation' section.

The monitoring program during the 1970s based on this use of the Emery method initially comprised fortnightly cross-shore prole surveys at a total of fourteen prole lines along the embayment. Each prole line was surveyed at spring low tide from a xed benchmark located in the stable dune area down to a swimming depth within (and sometimes beyond) the surf zone. This labour-intensive approach typically extended each surveyed prole to depths of 14 m below mean sea level, depending on the prevailing surf conditions. The cross-shore spacing of each measurement was 10 m.

Following the rst few years of these fortnightly surveys at fourteen prole lines, a pragmatic decision was made to reduce and focus on-going effort to achieve monthly surveys at a lesser number of ve representative prole lines. These ve proles that continue to the present day are numbered 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8 (north to south, hereafter identied as PF1, PF2, PF4, PF6 and PF8) and their locations are indicated in

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Fig. 1; their non-sequential numbering corresponds to the original numbering scheme when 14 proles were surveyed. The seaward survey limit for each of these ve representative proles was also changed to the more easily achievable intersection with mean sea level (i.e., approximately wading depths). These early and pragmatic decisions to limit the number and cross-shore extent of each prole line are undoubtedly the key reasons why monthly surveys were subsequently achieved by the same personnel during the ensuing three decades.

2004-present: new survey technologies. Recognising the unique and growing value of the Narrabeen survey dataset worldwide, beginning in 2004 efforts were initiated by the UNSW Water Research Laboratory55 to secure, improve and expand the monitoring program into the future through the use of new survey technologies. This commenced in July 2004, with the decision to transition the historical prole line surveys from the Emery method to the use of high-accuracy RTK-GPS technology (vertical accuracy 0.03 cm). Following a 16-month validation period during which surveys were undertaken concurrently using the Emery method and RTK-GPS (refer Technical Validation section), the use of RTK-GPS as the standard survey method for the ve prole lines was adopted in May 2005. The cross-shore resolution of each prole survey was also increased at this time from the original 10 m measurement spacing to near-continuous (i.e., approximately every 0.10 m cross-shore). At the same time as the use of RTK-GPS was implemented in early 2004, an Argus coastal imaging station56 was installed atop the 44 m high Flight Deck apartment building at South Narrabeen. Since this time, this station has continuously collected hourly daylight images of the southern sector of the beach from ve separate cameras (the eld of view encompassing PF6 and PF8). These images are available for public viewing and download (http://ci.wrl.unsw.edu.au

Web End =http://ci.wrl.unsw.edu.au). Since 2004 several additional survey techniques have been progressively implemented at Narrabeen (Table 2) to complement the on-going monthly prole surveys detailed here, with the objective to begin to build for the future an expanded dataset with which to gain greater understanding of beach morphodynamics at more detailed spatial and temporal resolutions. It is our goal that, as the necessary resources to undertake rigorous QA, data archiving, online storage and delivery become available, open access to these additional data will be facilitated via the `live' data repository at: http://narrabeen.wrl.unsw.edu.au

Web End =http://narrabeen.wrl.unsw.edu.au .

Cross-shore bathymetry transects to accompany the historical prole surveys have been obtained from 11 hydrographic surveys conducted by the NSW Ofce of Environment and Heritage (OEH) during the period 20112015. These hydrographic surveys have been undertaken using a variety of methods: a single-beam jetski-mounted system for shallow water depth soundings (8 jetski surveys in total); a single-beam boat-mounted system for shallow-intermediate water depth soundings (2 surveys); and a multi-beam boat-mounted system for intermediate water depth soundings at high resolution (1 survey).

Waves and astronomical tidesHourly offshore wave measurements of the signicant wave height Hs, peak wave period Tp and mean wave direction Dir have been recorded by the Sydney directional waverider buoy since March 1992, located 11 km offshore of Narrabeen (33 47S, 151 25E) in 80 m water depth (Fig. 1). In order to obtain a continuous directional wave time-series spanning as much as is currently possible of the full duration of the beach survey program, wave data prior to 1992 as well as gaps in the wave measurement record

Survey technique Survey period Survey frequency Spatial coverage

Historical prole line surveys (Emery method)

April 1976August 2006 Monthly Five representative prole lines (subaerial beach)

Historical prole line surveys (RTK-GPS)

May 2005present Monthly Five representative prole lines (subaerial beach)

Argus coastal imaging (Flight Deck Building)

July 2004present Hourly (daylight) Southern half of beach (shoreline mapping)

July 2005August 2008

Hourly (daylight)

Northernmost 500 m of beach/ Narrabeen Lagoon (shoreline mapping)

Argus coastal imaging (Nth Narrabeen/Narrabeen Lagoon)

RTK-GPS mounted on an All-Terrain-Vehicle

July 2005present Monthly Entire 3.6 km long subaerial beach

Airborne Lidar surveys July 2011present Pre/post major storm events Entire 3.6 km long subaerial beach and dunes

Permanent xed Lidar (Flight Deck Building)

May 2014 -present 5 Hz (continuous) One prole line

June 2014present

Pre/post major storm events

Entire 3.6 km long subaerial beach and dunes

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Structure-from-Motion surveys

April 2011present

Irregular

Entire 3.6 km long beach in the surf zone and offshore

Single/multi-beam hydrographic surveys using boat/jetski (courtesy of NSW Ofce of Environment and Heritage)

Table 2. Summary of Narrabeen coastal monitoring program (source: ref. 53).

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(typically a few days, in total 5%) have been lled by hourly hindcast waves. A high-resolution wave hindcast dataset (approx. 7 km grid spacing) developed by the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research (CAWCR)57 that currently spans the period 19792014 at the closest grid point to Sydney (33 48S, 151 24E) was used for this purpose. The resulting continuous (hourly) offshore wave time-series from January 1979 to October 2014 was then transformed to 10 m water depths at the location of each of the ve cross-shore prole lines using the nearshore wave model SWAN58. The

SWAN model transformation (refer below for technical validation) was undertaken by means of a lookup table based on 1573 model run combinations of offshore Hs, Tp and Dir. Physical processes activated in the SWAN model include triad wave-wave interactions, wave growth, white-capping, depth-induced wave breaking and bottom friction (adopting default parameters for each process). A JONSWAP wave spectrum was assumed with a peak enhancement factor of 3.3 (default). These discrete wave combinations used for SWAN model runs span the range of offshore wave conditions along this coastline, from signicant wave heights between 0.25 and 9.5 m, wave periods between 2 and 17 s and wave directions between 0 and 245 TN. Since wave period is unchanged in shallow water, peak wave periods at the 10 m water depth locations are assumed equal to offshore values (i.e., no wave period transformation is undertaken).

Astronomical Tides over the same time period as the combined wave data (i.e., January 1979October 2014) have been derived at 15 min intervals using the tidal analysis package T_Tide59 based on available water-level data (19872012) at the nearby HMAS Penguin tide gauge (33 4931.66S, 151 1530.71E).

This subset of measured water-level data was obtained from an external organisation (contact details provided in online live data repository http://narrabeen.wrl.unsw.edu.au

Web End =http://narrabeen.wrl.unsw.edu.au ). Absolute tidal anomalies due to short-term atmospheric and oceanographic uctuations for this 25 year time period are found to be limited to 0.19 m for 95% of the time and 0.26 m for 99% of the time. A comprehensive analysis and discussion of historical and recent sea-level trends and variability in this region are detailed in ref. 60.

Code availabilityThe lookup table used to transform the combined deepwater directional wave data to the 10 m water depth corresponding to the inshore location of each of the ve individual prole survey transects is available at http://narrabeen.wrl.unsw.edu.au. This is implemented as a single and fully commented MATLAB function.

The T_Tide software code used to generate the Astronomical Tide time-series for Sydney that is provided with this dataset is freely available at: https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/~rich/#T_Tide

Web End =https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/~rich/#T_Tide . Output statistics from this T_Tide analysis for Sydney, including all signicant tidal amplitudes, is also available at http://narrabeen.wrl.unsw.edu.au

Web End =http://narrabeen.wrl.unsw.edu.au .

Data Records

The full archived dataset can be obtained at [Data Citation 1]. Access to these same data plus additional background information, online visualisation tools and the prole surveys as they continue to be updated on a monthly basis are also provided at http://narrabeen.wrl.unsw.edu.au

Web End =http://narrabeen.wrl.unsw.edu.au .

Table 3 documents the data format and metadata for the complete monthly beach prole dataset April 1976February 2016. Figure 2 shows graphically the mean prole and envelope of prole change that has been recorded at each survey prole PF1, PF2, PF4, PF6 and PF8. Also shown in this gure is the time-series of beach width 19762016 recorded at the 0 m AHD (Australian Height Datum) contour

BEACH PROFILE SURVEY DATASET

Prole ID Origin and Orientation [Lat/Long/degN]

Data File Time-series Sample Frequency File Format

PF1

Narrabeen_Proles.csv

334220.65S 1511816.30E 118.42

27/04/1976 -03/10/2014

Monthly (nominal)

Column 1Prole IDColumn 2Survey date (dd/mm/yyyy) Column 3Chainage (m from origin) Column 4Elevation (m AHD) Column 5Flag (EMERY, GPS, or DUNEFILL)

334233.45S 1511810.33E 113.36

PF2

as above

as above

as above

as above

PF4

as above

as above

as above

as above

334301.55S 1511758.84E 100.26

334329.81S 1511758.65E83.65

PF6

as above

as above

as above

as above

334355.94S 1511806.47E60.48

PF8

as above

as above

as above

as above

Table 3. Datasetmonthly cross-shore prole surveys. (Elevation relative to Australian Height DatumAHD, corresponding to approximately MSL). Lat/long are referenced to GRS80 Ellipsoid.

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10

Elevation (m)

150

Width (m)

PF1

5

100

0

0 100 200

50 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015

10

Elevation (m)

130

Width (m)

PF2

5

80

0

0 100 200

30 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015

10

Elevation (m)

130

Width (m)

PF4

5

80

0

0 100 200

30 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015

10

Elevation (m)

100

Width (m)

PF6

5

50

0

0 100 200

0 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015

10

Elevation (m)

120

Width (m)

PF8

5

70

0

0 100 200

Chainage (m)

20 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015

Year

Figure 2. Narrabeen cross-shore prole surveys (April 1976February 2016). Left panels show all monthly beach proles (mean prole in bold); right panels show corresponding time-series of beach width at the 0 m AHD (Australian height datum) contour elevation.

elevation, corresponding to (approximately) mean sea level.

The ve proles lines are provided in a single comma-delimited text le Narrabeen_Proles.csv. Note that survey measurements prior to May 2005 (survey method EMERY in column 5) were undertaken at a xed cross-shore spacing of 10 m (no interpolation), while surveys undertaken after this time (survey method GPS) have been interpolated to a standard 1 m cross-shore spacing. Intermittent survey measurements in the stable dune areas of each prole have been carried through to the following survey date and are identied by the ag DUNEFILL in column 5.

Table 4 documents the specic data format and metadata for the bathymetry transects extending seawards from approximately 2 to 20 m AHD, corresponding to the location of each of the ve beach prole lines. These data are provided in a single comma-delimited text le Narrabeen_Bathymetry.csv. Bathymetry transect data (Fig. 3) were obtained from 11 intermittent hydrographic surveys conducted between 2011 and 2015. The data is provided at a xed 1 m cross-shore spacing referenced to the same origin as the prole line surveys. Any rock (i.e., non-erosive) reefs located along the bathymetry transects (most notably in proles PF1 and PF8) are identied in column 5 by REEF, whereas sandy bed types are labelled SAND. Single-beam jetski-mounted measurements are denoted in column 6 by the ag SBEAMJETSKI, single-beam boat mounted surveys by SBEAMBOAT and multi-beam boat-mounted surveys by MBEAMBOAT.

Table 5 documents the formats and metadata for the hourly time-series of inshore signicant wave height (Hs), peak wave period (Tp) and mean wave direction (Dir) at 10 m water depth directly seaward of each of the ve beach prole lines. The comma-delimited text le is called Inshore_Waves.csv. The wave roses shown in Fig. 4 summarise the long-term features of the deepwater and inshore wave climate for this same period, showing the dominance of persistent long period swell waves from a SSE direction. Note that these wave time-series start approximately 3.5 years after the commencement of the beach survey program and presently end in October 2014. At the time of writing no source of deepwater wave information (source identied in column 5 as MEASmeasured, HINDhindcast, or INTERPlinear gap-interpolations) outside of this ~35 year time-window was available.

Table 6 documents the comma-delimited Astronomical_Tide.csv text le, format and metadata for the hourly time-series of astronomical tide spanning the identical period of the inshore wave time-series.

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CROSS-SHORE BATHYMETRY DATASET

Prole ID

Origin and Orientation (Lat/Long/degN]

Data File

Time-series

Sample Frequency

File Format

Column 1Prole IDColumn 2Survey date (dd/mm/ yyyy)

Column 3Chainage (m from origin)

Column 4Elevation (m AHD) Column 5Bed type (SAND or REEF)

Column 6Flag (SBEAMJETSKI, SBEAMBOAT, or MBEAMBOAT)

334220.65S 1511816.30E 118.42

PF1

Narrabeen _Bathymetry.csv

07/03/201130/07/2015

Irregular

334233.45S 1511810.33E 113.36

PF2

as above

as above

as above

as above

334301.55S 1511758.84E 100.26

PF4

as above

as above

as above

as above

334329.81S 1511758.65E83.65

PF6

as above

as above

as above

as above

334355.94S 1511806.47E60.48

PF8

as above

as above

as above

as above

Table 4. DatasetCross-Shore Bathymetry Transects. (Elevation relative to Australian Height DatumAHD, corresponding to approximate MSL, lat/longs are referenced to GRS80 Ellipsoid).

PF1

Chainage (m)

10

10 PF2

PF4

10

5

Elevation (m)

Elevation (m)

5

5

0

0

0

5

5

Elevation (m)

5

10

10

10

15

15

15

20 0 250 500 750 1000 1250

20 0 250 500 750 1000 1250

20 0 250 500 750 1000 1250

Chainage (m)

Chainage (m)

10 PF8

Chainage (m)

PF6

10

Elevation (m)

5

5

Elevation (m)

0

0

Bathymetric data Topographic data Reef location

5

5

10

10

15

15

20

20

0 250 500 750 1000 1250

0 250 500 750 1000 1250

Chainage (m)

Figure 3. Bathymetry transect data corresponding to the ve prole lines. Bathymetry data are derived from 11 hydrographic surveys of the entire embayment undertaken intermittently between 2011 and 2015 by the NSW Ofce of Environment and Heritage. Topographic data (the monthly beach prole surveys) are also indicated for reference.

Technical Validation

Emery method survey validationValidation of the Emery method surveys was assessed over a 16-month period (May 2005August 2006) when all ve prole lines were measured concurrently by both the Emery method and high-accuracy RTK-GPS. Comparing the complete proles derived from the two survey methods (80 proles in total), vertical deviations were found to be approximately normally distributed with a mean of 0.03 m and a standard deviation of 0.13 m. In the intertidal zone (between 0 and +2 m AHD), this translates to a cross-shore standard deviation of 1.1 m. Considering the magnitude of cross-shore variability at this site (standard deviation of width at the 0 m AHD contour = 1114 m), this represents a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) in the order of 10:1. A full summary of the Emery method validation and SNR analyses at various time scales for the Narrabeen beach prole data set is detailed in ref. 52.

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INSHORE WAVES DATASET

Prole ID Location (Lat/Long/Depth] Time-series Data File File Format

PF1

334229.59S 1511835.32E 10 m

01/197910/2014

Column 1Prole IDColumn 2Date and time (AEST, dd/mm/yyyy HH:MM) Column 3Signicant wave height (m)

Column 4Peak wave period (s)

Column 5Wave direction ( TN)

Column 6Flag (MEAS, HIND or INTERP)

Inshore_Waves.csv

PF2

as above

as above

as above

334237.83S 1511821.93E 10 m

334303.68S 1511811.73E 10 m

PF4

as above

as above

as above

334328.73S 1511812.27E 10 m

PF6

as above

as above

as above

334347.32S 1511825.40E 10 m

PF8

as above

as above

as above

Table 5. DatasetInshore Waves. (Time relative to 24 h Australian Eastern Standard TimeAEST, Lat/longs are referenced to GRS80 Ellipsoid).

PF1

PF2

PF4

N

N

N

60%

40%

20%

90%

60%

30%

60%

40%

20%

W

E

W

E

W

E

S

S

S

PF6

PF8

Offshore

N

N

N

60%

40%

20%

90%

60%

30%

30%

20%

10%

W

E

W

E

W

E

S

S

S

Hs (m)

0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 Inf

Figure 4. Wave roses for the Sydney deepwater wave climate as well as the ve inshore wave datasets located at 10 m water depths for the ve survey transects. Deepwater wave data are based on combined wave hindcast/ measured waves between 1979 and 2014. Inshore wave data are derived from a SWAN model transformation. Prole line orientations are indicated by a solid black line. Note the differing axis scaling for individual waves roses.

CAWCR wave hindcast data validationThe CAWCR wave hindcast dataset has been validated at both a global level (using global satellite altimeter data) and regional level (using Northern Hemisphere and South Pacic wave buoys), as documented by ref. 57. In order to assess the applicability of this wave hindcast data for the Sydney

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ASTRONOMICAL TIDE DATASET

Parameter [unit] Time-series Sample Frequency Data File File Format

Date & time [dd/mm/yyyy HH:MM] Astronomical Tide [m AHD]

Table 6. DatasetAstronomical Tide. (Time relative to 24 h Australian Eastern Standard TimeAEST. Astronomical tide relative to Australian Height DatumAHD).

CAWCR WAVE HINDCAST VALIDATION

Hs Tp Dir

Location R Bias RMSE R Bias RMSE R Bias RMSE

Offshore 0.90 0.03 m 0.32 m 0.51 0.62 s 2.3 s 0.70 8.4 30.1

PF1 0.87 0.01 m 0.25 m N/A N/A N/A 0.69 3.2 12.5

PF2 0.86 0.01 m 0.22 m N/A N/A N/A 0.67 1.7 8.7

PF4 0.84 0.02 m 0.27 m N/A N/A N/A 0.68 1.8 9.6

PF6 0.81 0.04 m 0.28 m N/A N/A N/A 0.69 2.1 9.1

PF8 0.80 0.06 m 0.24 m N/A N/A N/A 0.67 1.5 8.2

Table 7. Validation of CAWCR wave hindcast for the Sydney waverider buoy.

NEARSHORE WAVE VALIDATION

Offshore Dataset Hs Dir

R Bias RMSE R Bias RMSE

Measured 0.94 0.02 m 0.18 m 0.74 4.4 11.2

Hindcast 0.91 0.04 m 0.22 m 0.62 2.9 12.8

Table 8. Validation of SWAN nearshore wave transformation using both measured and hindcast offshore wave data.

region, wave hindcast data at the nearest grid point was compared to hourly measured data from the Sydney waverider buoy (19922014, n = 1,65,388). Statistics used for the validation include the Pearson correlation coefcient R, mean bias (mean bias = hindcastmeasured data) and the root-mean-square-error (RMSE). These statistics are summarised in Table 7 for all three wave parameters (Hs, Tp and Dir) at both offshore and inshore locations.

This validation indicates a strong agreement between hindcast and measured offshore data for Hs (R = 0.90, bias = 0.03 m, RMSE = 0.43 m) that decreases in accuracy for Dir (R = 0.70, bias = 8.4, RMSE = 30.1) and Tp (R = 0.51, bias = 0.62 s, RMSE = 2.3 s). Such results are consistent with those observed both at a global level and with the Northern Hemisphere/South Pacic buoys described by ref. 57. The decrease in accuracy related to the peak wave period can in part be explained by the discontinuity of the measured peak wave period data, which can vary substantially under mixed sea/swell regimes and when there is bimodality in the wave spectra. When transforming both measured and hindcast data to the ve inshore locations, a dampening of the wave direction bias (e.g., from 8.4 offshore to 1.5 at PF8) as well as the overall RMSE is observed. This dampening is related to an overall decrease in wave directional variability as waves are refracted and attenuated from deep to shallow water.

Nearshore wave transformation validation

To assess the validity of the SWAN nearshore wave transformation used to transform offshore (deepwater) wave data to inshore (intermediate-shallow) values, the same lookup table was applied and compared to hourly data from an inshore waverider buoy deployed within the Narrabeen embayment spanning a four-month period between July and November 2011. The location of this buoy (334317S, 1511815E) was approximately halfway between PF4 and PF6, at the same 10 m water depth. As a means of evaluating the additional uncertainty that is introduced by using offshore wave hindcast as opposed to measured data for this purpose, both measured and hindcast offshore wave data were also independently transformed and compared to inshore measurements. A total of 2,431 measurements of inshore signicant wave height and direction were used for the validation. Validation statistics were the same as those described above for the hindcast validation: correlation coefcient R, mean bias (mean bias = transformedmeasured data) and RMSE. These statistics are summarized in Table 8.

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01/197610/2014 15 min Astronomical_Tide.csv Column 1Date and time (AEST)Column 2Astronomical tide (m AHD)

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In general, both the transformed measured and transformed hindcast data indicate good agreement with inshore measured values, with correlation coefcients of 0.94 and 0.91 for measured and hindcast Hs respectively; and corresponding 0.74 and 0.62 for Dir. Mean biases for both measured and hindcast deepwater waves transformed to the nearshore are likewise small and are in the order of 0.02 and 0.04 m respectively for Hs (i.e., a slight underestimation of inshore wave heights) and 4.4 and 2.9 respectively for Dir (i.e., a slightly more southerly estimation of the wave direction). The relatively minor reduction in accuracy for the wave hindcast data when transformed to inshore values justies its use for the purpose of gap-lling and extending the wave dataset over the available historical record.

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Data Citations

1. Turner, I. L. et al. Dryad http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.28g01

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Acknowledgements

Since 2004 the continuing beach monitoring program has been funded by the Australian Research Council (Discovery and Linkage), Warringah Council, NSW Ofce of Environment and Heritage (OEH), SIMS foundation and the UNSW Faculty of Engineering. OEH provided the representative bathymetry data included here. The Sydney waverider buoy data used for offshore to inshore wave transformation is funded by OEH and managed by Manly Hydraulics Laboratory (http://www.mhl.nsw.gov.au

Web End =http://www.mhl.nsw.gov.au). The SWAN lookup table to complete this transformation was initially created by Mr Ed Kearney. CSIRO (especially Dr Mark Hemer) is acknowledged for undertaking and providing the CAWCR wave hindcast dataset. Brad Morris of OEH provided the Sydney tide measurements for T_Tide analysis. Brett Miller at UNSW provided guidance on the creation of the live DataWarehouse data repository. And nally, the authors with to thank all those individuals who have joined us on the beach to assist with the monthly surveys during the past 4 decades.

Author Contributions

I.L.T. conceived of the public release and publication of the Narrabeen beach prole survey dataset and lead the writing of the manuscript; since 2004 has led the continuation, expansion and funding of the monitoring program. M.D.H. undertook the preparation of data les, gures and data validation; contributed to the writing of the manuscript and undertook the original analyses that enabled the integration of the historical with modern beach prole survey technologies; currently responsible for the day-to-day management of the monitoring program. A.D.S. commenced the Narrabeen beach monitoring program in 1976, and for the period 1976 to 2004 was entirely responsible for prole data collection and management; continuing mentor to the monitoring program team past and present; contributed to the writing of the manuscript. J.A.S. undertook the programming that underpins the live DataWarehouse repository, currently shares the responsibility of continuing the monthly prole surveys

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and contributed to the writing of the manuscript. M.A.B. undertook and managed the monthly survey program from 2010 to 2013, and contributed to the writing of the manuscript. K.D.S. has assisted with the management and continuation of the monthly survey program since 2011, and contributed to the writing of the manuscript. M.S.P. currently shares the responsibility of continuing the monthly prole surveys and contributed to the writing of the manuscript.

Additional information

Competing nancial interests: The authors declare no competing nancial interests.

How to cite this article: Turner, I. L. et al. A multi-decade dataset of monthly beach prole surveys and inshore wave forcing at Narrabeen, Australia. Sci. Data 3:160024 doi: 10.1038/sdata.2016.24 (2016).

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Metadata associated with this Data Descriptor is available at http://www.nature.com/sdata/

Web End =http://www.nature.com/sdata/ and is released under the CC0 waiver to maximize reuse.

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