Tumby Bay Boardwalk

Lying along Eyre Peninsula’s 3,292 km coastline are areas of Temperate Coastal Saltmarsh under increasing threat of degradation. These saltmarshes are listed as a nationally Threatened Ecological Community. Coastal saltmarshes are a vital part of the Eyre Peninsula’s ecology. They protect our shorelines, act as blue-carbon sinks, and are important fish nurseries and bird habitat. One of the threats to saltmarshes is ‘coastal squeeze’.

At the Tumby Bay Boardwalk Pix Stix Sites 1 and 2, located on opposite sides of the boardwalk, we are monitoring the ‘coastal squeeze’ of this saltmarsh habitat caused by sea level rise. With sea level rise, high tide levels move inland, and mangroves move, or "retreat", inland too, moving into the samphire zone. Where the saltmarsh is blocked from moving inland too, by human developments or even natural landscape features, this is called 'coastal squeeze’, and can result in reduction or even loss of saltmarsh and even mangroves.