Our work in natural disasters means we are often required to investigate coastal storm damage, erosion, and inundation problems. I joined JBP six months ago as a coastal engineering graduate and was surprised by how frequently our engineers rely on natural materials, which had less emphasis in my engineering degree than concrete and structural courses. One example project is our work to develop a Dune Management Plan for the Burdekin Coastline, where we have had to look towards nature-based approaches to minimise erosion, by developing a natural buffer against storms. Using spatial analysis we worked to quantify the damage of human activities along the dunes, and to identify weak points wh

To the uninitiated, construction drawings may appear to be a jumble of lines, numbers, text and arrows, with no real sense of meaning, but what if that information could be presented in such a way that it can be easily understood by anybody? At JBPacific, we have embraced an approach to designing in 3 dimensions (4 dimensions if you include our modelling of coastal processes). By taking this approach, it allows us to better conceptualise the arrangement of design elements, avoid clashes, and facilitating the designing out of hazards which may arise at both the construction and operational phases of a projects life cycle. This also enables stakeholders to see what the final output will look l

JBP is working alongside Australia’s state and local governments to plan for future changes to our coastal environment and way of life in the years to come. Part of this process involves using modelling techniques to determine how the coastline will react to changing weather and sea level conditions. This is where I come in. Why model coastal processes? The coast is a complex and dynamic environment. Fortunately, numeric models allow us to represent the natural coast in a controlled way and perform many calculations quickly and efficiently. Modelling affords us the freedom to tweak and play with natural processes and we can use real-world data to calibrate our results. Crucially, modelling a