ORCID
- Gerd Masselink: 0000-0001-6079-7611
- Christopher Stokes: 0000-0003-0684-7790
- Timothy Poate: 0000-0002-4285-3066
- Peter Ganderton: 0000-0003-4550-319X
Abstract
Coastal managers worldwide must prepare for changes in annual wave overtopping events due to climate change and sea-level rise. Research often assesses overtopping discharges by extreme events at a sea wall crest, typically using data from physical models or empirical rules based on scaled experiments. Here, we analyse a unique 1-year field dataset of coastal wave overtopping, from SW England, to determine the number of individual waves, regardless of their size, overtopping two locations across a coastal structure. The coastal conditions causing the most frequent overtopping differ from those driving it landward, complicating hazard communications for multiuse infrastructure. These data are the first field observations covering a year of tide, wave and wind conditions that cause overtopping of a vertical sea wall. Storms have a minimal (<2%) contribution to the number of tides associated with overtopping and the prevailing wave direction was not that associated with most overtopping events. Overtopping histograms identify the variability in the most likely time of overtopping relative to high tide for different wave categories across the structure. Sea-level rise, beach lowering and climate change will influence the annual number of waves overtopping in future. Change will be a complex balance between overtopping by different wave categories due to their likelihood of coincidence with water levels that do not cause depth-limitation over the foreshore or (partial-)reflection off the structure. It is possible the number of waves overtopping will reduce at the crest of a sea wall, while more of those overtopping waves will travel further inland.
DOI Link
Publication Date
2025-11-18
Publication Title
Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
Volume
13
Issue
11
Acceptance Date
2025-11-13
Deposit Date
2026-03-04
Funding
This research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), grant number NE/V002538/1 and NE/V002589/1.
Additional Links
Keywords
climate impact, coastal hazard management, coastal hazard monitoring, coastal wave overtopping, landward wave overtopping distribution, sea-level rise, storm impact
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Brown, J., Masselink, G., Yelland, M., Stokes, C., Poate, T., Pascal, R., Jones, D., Walk, J., Cardwell, C., Martin, B., Ganderton, P., Gregory, J., Adams, R., & Saunders, J. (2025) 'Spatial and Temporal Variation in Wave Overtopping Across a Coastal Structure Based on One Year of Field Observations', Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 13(11). Available at: 10.3390/jmse13112194
