Coastal Systems

The main goal of this course is to elaborate the main processes and phenomena in the coastal area. Furthermore the participants will be familiarised with basics for numerical modeling to be aware of the limitations and characteristics of hydrodynamic numerical models.

For whom?

This course is useful for researchers and engineers dealing with modeling and analysis of coastal processes. Also the engineers involved in design of coastal protections can benefit from the insight of coastal processes provided in this short course.

A Bachelor degree in Civil Engineering, Physical Geography, Environmental Engineering/Science (incl coastal subjects) and (Bachelor level) knowledge of physical coastal processes such as waves, tides, sediment transport is preferred.

Course content

In this course the following topics will be discussed:

Coastal Hydrodynamics
Sediment transport by currents plus waves
Sediment balance equation
Sedimentation of navigation channels
Current-induced scour around breakwaters
Formation of channels in deltas and tidal inlets
Transverse and longshore sand transport under the influence of waves and currents,
Modern longshore transport formulae and coastline computations
Analytical formulae
Background of mathematical models
Introduction to various hard protection methods (groins, artificial headlands ,offshore breakwaters)
Main system characteristics of the world’s important coastal lowland environments (mangroves, beach/dunes, estuaries, wetlands)

Prerequisites

Basic knowledge of waves and tides

Application procedure

Deadline IHE application: 07 January 2021 - 23.59 (CET)

Learning outcomes

Upon completion, the participant should be able to:

explain governing processes in coastal hydrodynamics and morphology
assess processes related to salt intrusion and density currents;
apply in practice their understanding of hydrodynamic and morphological processes in diverse coastal environments, such as reefs, mangroves and rocky coasts
describe estuarine morphological processes