Salients Consulting has been engaged by Wollongong Council to undertake a hazard study of the Wollongong coast as part of their Coastal Management program.

There are two main types of coastal hazards that we're going to be investigating. There are ones associated with the erosion - this includes things like beach erosion and also the erosion of cliffs and recession and potential collapse of cliffs along the coastline.

The second type has to do with inundation, and this may be things like waves running up the beach and overtopping seawalls or also running into creek entrances and causing inundation of low-lying land around those creeks.

Most of the methods that we use are going to be desktop-based, however there will be some field investigations being undertaken as well. The field investigations will not cause any damage - we've chosen the most non-intrusive methods. The techniques will include boreholes and seismic testing.

So, you might see some people out on the beach swinging sledgehammers which is part of that seismic testing.