Goolwa Beach along South Australia’s Encounter Bay has become a hotspot for four-wheel driving, but researchers warn a gap between perception and impact is quietly degrading the very environment visitors come to enjoy.

On this year’s Australia Day, around 700 vehicles packed the 18-kilometre shoreline from the Beach Road access ramp to the River Murray Mouth according to Alexandrina Council Mayor Keith Parkes.

“People come down here because they love the fact that they can get onto the beach and drive onto this beautiful beach,” he says.

The sand was covered with cars, tents and people soaking up the scenery and fishing for pipis, echoing scenes at nearby Aldinga Beach.

Day trips to the region have increased from 518,275 in 2022–23 to 740,000 in 2023–24 according to annual reports.

While recent traffic data is lacking, Parkes says driving at Goolwa Beach is a “huge” tourism draw.

However, CLLMM Research Centre manager Jane French says the popularity is coming at a cost.

“It looks like a superhighway,” French says.

“Sometimes there will be a kilometre and a half of cars banked up Beach Road waiting to get to the beach. It’s horrible.

“Damage has certainly increased post-COVID; our population doubles easily during holiday periods and beach usage has been out of control.”

Environmental scientist, Hindmarsh Island local and former councillor Melissa Rebbeck has noticed visible signs of damage.

“Cars camping all the way along Goolwa Beach up to the Murray Mouth has a big impact because often the cars or people push into the dunes,” she says.

“You can see quite a number of blown out areas caused by wind tunnels on a small track that … erode more vegetation.

“We’ve lived down here for 20 years … and over time, I’ve seen a lot more erosion.”

Tyre tracks at the base of eroded dunes on Goolwa Beach. (Image: supplied by CLLMM Research Centre)

CLLMM Research Centre science program manager Dr Nick Whiterod says Rebbeck is one of many concerned locals.

“Driving on the beach is a community concern — not for the whole community, but a subset,” Whiterod says.

“It’s a fairly big priority to look into this and see what can be done.”

In response, the CLLMM Research Centre has launched a project to gauge people’s perceptions of the impacts they are having on beaches, including through driving, and how this compares to scientific knowledge.

Whiterod and French outside the CLLMM Research Centre. (Image: Alana Pahor)

Project lead and University of South Australia ecologist Craig Styan says part of the issue in addressing human threats is that “we don’t know much about sandy beach ecosystems”.

“They’re hard to study because they’re quite dynamic,” he says.

“Not much work has been done on that part of the coastline.

“We’re collating what information we do have and talking to people to get a baseline about their understanding of beaches.”

The project involved two surveys across the Coorong, Lower Lakes and Murray Mouth region, including Goolwa Beach, which concluded at the end of May.

Styan says the surveys asked locals and stakeholders what parts of the coastline they valued, and whether they believed human activity was impacting the beach’s “ability to keep on providing the service they want”.

With results under review, Styan says early findings indicate there is a mismatch between visitor perceptions that on-beach driving is harmless fun and the activity’s environmental effects.

Damage beneath the sand: the bigger ecological picture

“We all tend to think of [beaches] as deserts,” Styan says.

“We don’t have any fluffy marsupials crawling over them, right?

“If we did, we would probably notice it a bit more and be more concerned.”

Styan says there are a variety of macroinvertebrates in the sand, “which are all important for the birds and fish that are near the shore zone”.

“There are pipis, worms, crustaceans and shrimp-type organisms throughout the beach.

“Driving on them can make a difference. There’s a lot of pressure going downwards and for example, the pipis are not that deep in and can be crushed.”

While there is limited data on macroinvertebrates at Goolwa Beach, Styan says studies from Queensland confirm driving crushes the animals.

“There’s unique biology and critters and landscapes, but it’s the same process, the same problems, everywhere,” he says.

A 2008 study by the University of the Sunshine Coast compared macroinvertebrate samples at two high-traffic beaches to two “reference” beaches without vehicle traffic in southern Queensland.

The high-traffic North Shore and Teewah beaches contained a higher percentage of empty samples than the reference Peregian and Sunrise beaches across all seasons.

A significantly higher proportion of empty samples at vehicle-impacted beaches shows that vehicles kill macroinvertebrates. (Data source: University of the Sunshine Coast)

The study says the “strongest differences were recorded on the upper and middle part of the beach where most (91 [per cent]) of the vehicle traffic occurred”.

“Vehicle tracks were observed on the foredunes and these tracks contained crushed ghost crabs.”

This traffic pattern is consistent with what Rebbeck has observed at the Murray Mouth end of Goolwa Beach.

More tyre traffic is visible on the upper beach. (Image: supplied by CLLMM Research Centre)

“The beach is much more eroded because four-wheel drives tend to drive all over the dunes up that end,” she says.

“That is the area of the meeting of the waters, where the river meets the sea, and an environmentally diverse area.”

While data on dune impacts at Goolwa Beach is under review, a 2025 global analysis of sandy beach-dune systems led by the University of the Sunshine Coast indicates that driving harms coastal dune vegetation.

The study found that “on average, vegetation exposed to ORVs [off-road vehicles] had only 25-50 [per cent] of the abundance, biomass, spatial extent, or biodiversity compared to control areas”.

The study states that vegetation plays a “critical role in coastal resilience” and that dune driving enhances erosion, decreases animal diversity and increases disturbance and mortality of birds.

Rebbeck says similar disturbance is visible at the Murray Mouth.

“You can see birds and seals banked up on the other side [of the mouth] where cars can’t get to as easily,” she says.

Styan says the other side of the mouth is harder to access and acts as a “natural closure” for wildlife, while Goolwa Beach absorbs the bulk of traffic.

“If most people driving on beaches are doing it there, they aren’t doing it in other areas,” he says.

“Goolwa Beach is one of those sacrificial areas where people get the benefit from the beach, but the biology is affected.”

Styan says while climate change and weather events remain the biggest threats to Goolwa Beach, driving is an “immediate threat we also need to deal with”.

He says the Karenia mikimotoi algal bloom, which has ravaged the waters around South Australia since mid-March, has wiped out “tons of things living in the sand including invertebrates and fish”, and cars may hinder repopulation.

“Sandy beaches are often disturbed by big storms, so they do naturally recover and are quite dynamic,” he says.

“But if we’re now driving on the beach, it may slow down the process and make it harder for things to recover.

“It’ll be about regeneration and the impacts happening there, rather than an impact on an intact system.”

Driving culture and perceptions

While vehicle access permits are required for some Queensland beaches including Teewah Beach, French says Goolwa Beach remains a “free-for-all”.

“It’s becoming less and less … there’s not a lot of beaches around the country you can actually take your vehicle on, so that’s why I think Goolwa Beach is becoming very congested.”

“Because it’s still a bit remote, there’s that mentality of: ‘I’ll get here and relax and do what I want,’” she says.

Rebbeck says for many, a big part of the appeal is driving to the Murray Mouth for fishing.

“Four-wheel drives that go up to the mouth are often there for fun but not always for the environment,” she says.

Drivers fishing at the Murray Mouth. (Image: supplied by CLLMM Research Centre)

Dr Whiterod has noticed an increase in recreational pipi fishing.

“There’s an impact there,” he says.

“You imply that means there’s been more cars on the beach.”

Managing director of Ngarrindjeri fishery Kuti Co, Derek Walker, says vehicle use — along with foot traffic on the dunes — compounds erosion near culturally significant sites.

“Some people just fly down our beach like it’s a road and that can cause problems,” he says.

“Our big focus is on burial sites and sites of cultural significance, which are already seeing erosion from climate change.

“We’re not against people enjoying the beaches because they’re beautiful, but maybe just taking the time to understand what’s here and how they might leave a footprint that doesn’t cause other issues like erosion.”

Toyota Landcruiser Club of SA environmental officer Michael Polacek says his club drives responsibly and it is usually unaware or uneducated drivers who cause damage.

“They might be fishermen, or tourists who’ve come down for a look around, and because they’re not as aware, they have been seen going off track onto the sandhills,” he says.

“We probably go [to Goolwa Beach] once a year to induct new members into how to drive on a beach safely … we stick to the tracks along the high-water mark,” he says.

Regulation tensions

With concerns coming from a subset of the community, Styan says implementing beach access restrictions is politically contentious.

“You don’t need to be a scientist to know that if someone said, ‘Right, we’re stopping access to Goolwa Beach,’ there would be a huge outcry,” he says.

Even partial restrictions have faced backlash at other South Australian beaches.

When the state government announced a ban on overnight vehicle camping on Wauraltee Beach from February 3, 2025, members of the driving community were quick to express dissent.

A post published in Pat Callinan’s 4×4 Adventures said the restriction was “rash”, “irreversible” and felt “like a knee-jerk reaction to a temporary spike in numbers”.

State MP for Finniss and Shadow Minister for Environment David Basham, who supported the state government’s speed limit reduction from 100kph to 40kph on Goolwa Beach in 2022, says managing vehicle pressures at peak holiday times should not infringe on everyday access.

“There are two days a year that can be problematic, being New Year’s Day and Australia Day, and, to me, we need to make sure that we don’t overmanage the rest of the time,” he says.

“Most people are currently abiding by the rules.”

Conscious drivers stick to the lower beach. (Image: supplied by CLLMM Research Centre)

This hesitancy to impose blanket restrictions is echoed by mayor Keith Parkes, who says banning vehicles from the beach is “the last resort”.

“The last thing we want to do is stop access to the beach,” he says.

However, Parkes says managing beach driving is not straightforward.

“We don’t have the resources to patrol it properly and keep an eye on it all the time.”

“The police go and check it once or twice a day.”

Parkes says except for the dune area, which is monitored by SA Water, Goolwa Beach is controlled by the state government and patrolled by SAPOL.

“Council does have control over the entry point onto the access track to the beach,” he says.

“We are in discussion with state agencies … to come up with some alternative options to manage the vehicle access to the beach.”

Parkes says while discussion is preliminary, a permit system is likely.

“A permit system is probably the way it’ll end up, where our local residents can get a permit free of charge and visitors pay, and some sort of monitoring system.

“Some people have said we should put a boom gate there but people would just vandalise that.”

Basham says a permit system alone would not prevent rule breaking.

“I think there is an opportunity on those two particular days to just have someone on the beach entry with the authority to turn people around,” he says.

Rebbeck says regulation on busy days could also improve safety and enhance the visitor experience.

“In peak times, cars including non-four-wheel drives get bogged down in the access track, which causes issues if there’s an emergency.

“Its ecology is important to the entire Murray Darling Basin and the adjacent sea creatures and is also a very important part of our tourism.

“We need to respect it and show our tourists to do the same.”

The ugly truth

However, Styan says beach driving is not just an issue on busy days and that intermediate forms of regulation like permits “don’t make much of a difference”.

“There’s just no balance between cars on beaches and the ecosystem,” he says.

A 2016 study by the University of Western Australia found that macroinvertebrates at beaches with low vehicle traffic were “just as negatively affected as those at more intensively used beaches”.

Styan says “the first car over the dune probably does the most damage”.

“Then all the cars going afterwards keep doing damage.

“How do we trade that off as a society?” he says.

“How do we make that decision allowing access to people to get all the benefits that they perceive out of driving on Goolwa Beach versus the impacts that we think we’re having ecologically and that people are concerned about?

“This is just one of those issues where there’s no magic answer.”

Styan says while some researchers suggest beach closures, his project’s role is not to advocate for a particular management direction.

“But we do need to know the different ecosystem services that people value in beaches,” he says.

“Once we finalise that information, [stakeholders] can start to make decisions about what sort of monitoring we need to do, what sort of management changes we may think about.

“The question that we will have is that, if people knew what impact they have, whether they’d still feel the same about driving on beaches.”