Storm Tide and Wave Simulations and Assessment

In this Special Issue, seven high-quality papers covering the application and development of many high-end techniques for studies on storm tides, surges, and waves have been published, for instance, the employment of an artificial neural network for predicting coastal freak waves [1]; a reproduction of super typhoon-created extreme waves [2]; a numerical analysis of nonlinear interactions for storm waves, tides, and currents [3]; wave simulation for an island using a circulation–wave coupled model [4]; an analysis of typhoon-induced waves along typhoon tracks in the western North Pacific Ocean [5]; an understanding of how a storm surge prevents or severely restricts aeolian supply [6]; and an investigation of coastal settlements and an assessment of their vulnerability [7]

Exploring Marine and Aeolian Controls on Coastal Foredune Growth Using a Coupled Numerical Model

Coastal landscape change represents aggregated sediment transport gradients from spatially and temporally variable marine and aeolian forces. Numerous tools exist that independently simulate subaqueous and subaerial coastal profile change in response to these physical forces on a range of time scales. In this capacity, coastal foredunes have been treated primarily as wind-driven features. However, there are several marine controls on coastal foredune growth, such as sediment supply and moisture effects on aeolian processes. To improve understanding of interactions across the land-sea interface, here the development of the new Windsurf-coupled numerical modeling framework is presented. Windsurf couples standalone subaqueous and subaerial coastal change models to simulate the co-evolution of the coastal zone in response to both marine and aeolian processes. Windsurf is applied to a progradational, dissipative coastal system in Washington, USA, demonstrating the ability of the model framework to simulate sediment exchanges between the nearshore, beach, and dune for a one-year period. Windsurf simulations generally reproduce observed cycles of seasonal beach progradation and retreat, as well as dune growth, with reasonable skill. Exploratory model simulations are used to further explore the implications of environmental forcing variability on annual-scale coastal profile evolution. The findings of this work support the hypothesis that there are both direct and indirect oceanographic and meteorological controls on coastal foredune progradation, with this new modeling tool providing a new means of exploring complex morphodynamic feedback mechanisms