Benchmarking of numerical models for wave overtopping at dikes with shallow mildly sloping foreshores: Accuracy versus speed

Christopher H. Lashley*, Barbara Zanuttigh, Jeremy D. Bricker, Jentsje van der Meer, Corrado Altomare, Tomohiro Suzuki, Volker Roeber, Patrick Oosterlo

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)
125 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Practitioners often employ diverse, though not always thoroughly validated, numerical models to directly or indirectly estimate wave overtopping (q) at sloping structures. These models, broadly classified as either phase-resolving or phase-averaged, each have strengths and limitations owing to the physical schematization of processes within them. Models which resolve the vertical flow structure or the full wave spectrum (i.e. sea-swell (SS) and infragravity (IG) waves) are considered more accurate, but more computationally demanding than those with approximations. Here, we assess the speed-accuracy trade-off of six well-known models for estimating q, under shallow foreshore conditions. The results demonstrate that: i) q is underestimated by an order of magnitude when IG waves are neglected; ii) using more computationally-demanding models does not guarantee improved accuracy; and iii) with empirical corrections to incorporate IG waves, phase-averaged models like SWAN can perform on par, if not better than, phase-resolving models but with far less computational effort.

Original languageEnglish
Article number104740
Number of pages14
JournalEnvironmental Modelling and Software
Volume130
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

Keywords

  • BOSZ
  • Infragravity wave
  • OpenFOAM
  • SWAN
  • SWASH
  • XBeach

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