Wave-Driven Hydrodynamic Processes Over Fringing Reefs With Varying Slopes, Depths, and Roughness: Implications for Coastal Protection

Wave breaking on the steep fore-reef slopes of shallow fringing reefs can be effective at dissipating incident sea-swell waves prior to reaching reef shorelines. However, wave setup and free infragravity waves generated during the sea-swell breaking process are often the largest contributors to wave-driven water levels (wave runup) at the...

Coral Reef Restorations Can Be Optimized to Reduce Coastal Flooding Hazards

Coral reefs are effective natural coastal flood barriers that protect adjacent communities. Coral degradation compromises the coastal protection value of reefs while also reducing their other ecosystem services, making them a target for restoration. Here we provide a physics-based evaluation of how coral restoration can reduce coastal flooding...

A Numerical Study of Wave-Driven Mean Flows and Setup Dynamics at a Coral Reef-Lagoon System

Two-dimensional mean wave-driven flow and setup dynamics were investigated at a reef-lagoon system at Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia, using the numerical wave-flow model, SWASH. Phase-resolved numerical simulations of the wave and flow fields, validated with highly detailed field observations (including >10 sensors through the energetic...

Online-coupling of widely-ranged timescales to model coral reef development

The increasing pressure on Earth's ecosystems due to climate change is becoming more and more evident and the impacts of climate change are especially visible on coral reefs. Understanding how climate change interacts with the physical environment of reefs to impact coral growth and reef development is critically important to predicting the...

Hydro-Morphological Characterization of Coral Reefs for Wave Runup Prediction

Many coral reef-lined coasts are low-lying with elevations <4 m above mean sea level. Climate-change-driven sea-level rise, coral reef degradation, and changes in storm wave climate will lead to greater occurrence and impacts of wave-driven flooding. This poses a significant threat to their coastal communities. While greatly at risk, the...

Towards A Flood Risk Assessment On A Reef-lined Coastline

The assessment of coastal flood risk on a reef-lined coastline presents several challenges. From the probabilistic side, we need to consider all possible events that could occur in the system, taking into account the different contributions of waves, storm surges, and tides that contribute to the total water level. To estimate reliable flood...

HyCReWW: A Hybrid Coral Reef Wave and Water level metamodel

Wave-induced flooding is a major coastal hazard on tropical islands fronted by coral reefs. The variability of shape, size, and physical characteristics of the reefs across the globe make it difficult to obtain a parameterization of wave run-up, which is needed for risk assessments. Therefore, we developed the HyCReWW metamodel to predict wave...