Wednesday, 23 July 2014

Blog 1 - A Contextual Lens of Rip Currents in Australia

Introduction

Australia has some of the most beautiful coast lines in the world, how lucky are we to have this right outside our doors? (Sorry for those who live inland, you have some beautiful creeks, rivers and lakes).  However, as with anything of great beauty, there is also an element of danger and mystery involved and rip currents fall into the danger zone in our place of beauty.

During 2012-2013 15% of all drownings were associated with rip currents, that's about 18 people! (SLSA 2013).  Now, while 18 people does not seem like much in comparison to other causes of death per year, half of all rescues performed every year by life savers, life guards and surfers are from swimmers and waders caught in rip currents (Brighton et al. 2013).  So if the average number of people being rescued each year is say 800, that's a whole lot of people who were lucky enough not to fall into the death statistics category (thank you life guards, life savers, surfers and anyone else who has helped a swimmer from a rip).  So as you can see beach safety awareness is really important!

Now that I have you all as excited and passionate about the beach as I am! let's get into some facts about rip currents and some of the different perspective "lenses" people may wear when visiting the beach!

What is a rip current and how does it work?

As waves break onto the shore, water is pushed up to the shoreline and then needs to find its way back out to sea.  To do this the water has to go back the way it came so to speak, during this process the water flows downwards into deeper channels in the surf zone than when it came in "these deeper channels are called rip currents" (SLSA 2014).

There is more than one type of rip current and there are other elements involved to cause rip currents to occur, such as:
  • Tide size
  • Angle of the shoreline
  • Wind currents
  • Water currents
  • Wave strength
  • Sand bar and trough locations


Why are rip currents so dangerous?

Identifying a rip current is not always easy, as they can take on a number of different forms:
  • Fixed
  • Flash
  • Topographic
  • Mega
The hidden danger of a rip is that it produces calm water among the surf break, which can provide a false sense of security to unsuspecting swimmers.

Image: How to escape a rip current
Source: Beach Safe

How do I know where the safest place to swim is?

Finding out the safest place to swim nowadays is easy, there are websites and apps to check any beach in the country (SLSA 2014) or a quick call to your local council can ensure a fun day out is had by everyone.

Swimming between the red and yellow flags where life savers and life guards are on duty is always going to be the best and safest option (Maybe I'm biased but the statistics also back this up! (SLSA 2013)).  Asking about beach conditions before entering the water is always a good idea too, as it helps to give you an awareness of your environment which could mean the difference between being caught in a rip current or going home safely after a great day at the beach.

Contextual Lenses

Having a think about it and doing a bit more research it's incredible just how many different and varied perceptions there are of our beaches and rip currents.  A swimmer caught in a rip current can cause these perspectives to intertwine, resulting in a positive result (the majority of the time) and an opportunity to learn from the experience for all involved.

My Contextual Lens

Over the years my perspective on the subject has changed, I pretty much lived on the beach growing up and knew about beach safety and what a rip current was from a young age.  It's something that everyone around me also knew about, so living in my little bubble of beach awesomeness I assumed everyone knew about the amazing time you could have at the beach but also about the things you need to know and look out for.  I only truly understood how wrong it is to assume that everyone has that knowledge the first time I helped a swimmer from a rip current.

As they say knowledge is power and education is the key to awareness and something that seems like common sense to one person may not be to another.  Keeping this in mind has helped me alter my approach from "seriously, why doesn't everyone know about this?" to "perhaps that person doesn't know where they are going to swim is not the safest place to swim, maybe I can show them where it is".  Needless to say I have met some awesome people and heard some incredible stories from taking the latter approach in my days spent on the beach! 


The Contextual Lens of Others

Here are some of the perspectives people might have about the beach and rip currents.


Locals:


  • Love the lifestyle
  • Enjoy the beach
  • Why should we swim in one place?
  • I want to stay safe at the beach
  • What should I pack?
  • What is a rip current?
  • I'll just swim out if I get stuck
  • It won't happen to me
  • Everyone knows about rip currents
  • Let's go cliff jumping
  • Those people should be swimming between the flags
  • Didn't they read the signs


Tourists:

  • Australian beach are beautiful 
  • I can't wait to get in the water 
  • The waves are really big
  • Can we just swim anywhere?
  • That water between the waves looks calm enough to swim in
  • What is all this signage for?
  • I didn't bring my bathers, I'll just swim in my clothes
  • Can we jump off the cliffs?
  • The blow up lounge will be great to take in the water to float on!
  • I'll talk to the life guards and life savers before I get in the water
  • That flagged area looks like the place to swim there are a lot of people swimming there
  • What should I take with me?
  • What is happening, why am I going out to sea?
  • How will I get back in?
  • I can't touch the ground!
  • Am I going to get eaten by a shark?


Life savers and Life guards:

  • How many people will be down today?
  • What's the weather doing?
  • What is the water temperature?
  • Which way is the current going and how strong is it?
  • Are those children swimming with an adult?
  • Rips to the north make sure to set up well away from this area
  • All equipment ready and set up and cover any busy areas outside of the flags
  • What education and awareness information will be most useful today?
  • Why are those people swimming there?
  • Didn't they see the signage?
  • Maybe they are unaware of the safest place on the beach to swim?
  • Hope I get to this person in time


Industry:

  • What are people seeing when they go to the beach?
  • How can we make them more aware of safe areas to swim?
  • What are the ages and gender of people getting caught in rip currents?
  • What technology can we use to promote beach safety?
  • What is working to get the message across?
  • How many different nationalities visit our beaches per year?
  • What is the best way of knowing how a rip current works?
  • What beaches are most at risk?
  • How effective is our current means of education?
  • How effective are our current research projects?


Summary

We are one of the industry leaders when it comes to rip currents and beach safety and are very lucky to have the education and awareness to keep people safe at the beach.  By everyone sharing their perspective (lens) knowledge and experiences we can all help reduce the number of drownings.

The following clip is of the rip dye current experiment scientists have conducted on a Sydney beach, it's really interesting to get a perspective from the rip current as to how they work!

Video: Rip current time lapse
Source: Patrick Rynne



REFERENCES:

Brighton, B, Sherker, S, Brander, R, Thompson, M & Bradstreet, A 2013, Rip current related drowning deaths and rescues in Australia 2004-2011, Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, vol. 13, pp. 1069-1075, viewed 18 July 2014, http://www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/13/1069/2013/nhess-13-1069-2013.pdf  

Patrick Rynne 2010, Rip current time lapse, video, 18 June, viewed 10 July 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOkSvx-bn5k

Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA) 2013, 2013 National coastal safety report, Surf Life Saving Australia, viewed 9 July 2014, http://sls.com.au/sites/sls.com.au/files/slsa_2013_national_coastal_safety_report.PDF

Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA) 2014, BeachSafe 2014, Rip currents, viewed 8 July 2014, http://beachsafe.org.au/surf-ed/ripcurrents

Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA) n.d, Sydney’s beaches turn purple to raise awareness of rip currents, viewed 9 July 2014, https://sls.com.au/content/sydneys-beaches-turn-purple-raise-awareness-rip-currents

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