Coastal hydrodynamics of ocean waves on beach

Abstract

This chapter describes the coastal hydrodynamics of ocean waves on beach. A comprehensive study on modeling three-dimensional ocean waves coming from an open ocean of uniform depth and obliquely incident on beach with arbitrary offshore slope distribution, while evolving under balanced effects of nonlinearity and dispersion is presented. A family of beach configurations that is uniform in the long-shore direction as a first approximation for beaches with negligible long-shore curvature is considered. The beach slope variation is assumed to have such distributions that the ocean waves will evolve on beach without breaking. The overall approach adopted begins with development of a three-dimensional linear shallow-water wave theory, followed by taking, step by step, the nonlinear and dispersive effects into account. The linear theory is shown to provide a fundamental solution involving a central function, called the beach-wave function that delineates the evolution of the incoming train of simple waves during interaction with any beach belonging to this broad family of beach configurations. This linear theory can easily afford to cover such factors as oblique wave incidence, arbitrary distribution of offshore beach slope, and wavelength variations with respect to beach breadth.

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