Research: Protection from rising seas and severe storms

By modelling how waves interact with coastal structures, our research has helped improve coastal flood defences.

Research summary

Our research helps to understand how violent waves behave when they break over structures - paving the way for better coastal defences and flood protection.

We have produced detailed models of complex wave dynamics, including the first to integrate the effects of water depth, wind and aeration.

Our open source computer code, AMAZON, can be used to model the geometry of moving and floating structures.

AMAZON uses high resolution sensors to capture the interaction of water and air. It can identify sudden changes in system dynamics, and model wave generation, steepening, overturning and breaking over a structure. The code can also create a full set of flow variables.

By using parallel computing we’ve been able to substantially reduce the time it takes to run calculations. We’ve also overcome many of the limitations of other modelling techniques, including by integrating aeration and cavitation calculations. Both affect the loadings under extreme wave conditions that structures must survive.

By 2050 extreme coastal flooding could happen almost every year due to rising sea levels and more frequent and severe storms caused by climate change.

Source: IPCC

By 2050 extreme coastal flooding could happen almost every year due to rising sea levels and more frequent and severe storms caused by climate change.

Source: IPCC

Research impact

The Dutch engineering firm Royal HaskoningDHV has used our AMAZON shallow water code in more than 40 coastal defence projects - protecting communities and critical national infrastructure against flooding and erosion.

One example is the award-winning Bacton sandscaping project in Norfolk, which protects two villages and a natural gas terminal.

AMAZON helped understand how sand on the beach would behave during storms and how high dunes would need to be to provide protection. The new dunes are up to seven metres higher and the beach now extends as far as 250m out to sea - making the defences able to withstand a 1-in-10,000 year storm.

The economic benefit of the improved protection is estimated to be around £33m.

Royal HaskoningDHV is using AMAZON to investigate sandscaping projects at 20 other sites in the UK.

Time, tide and computer codes

Mathematical codes are helping to solve major engineering challenges by modelling the impact of waves on coastlines, structures and renewable energy sources.
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