Impact of sea-breeze activity on nearshore and foreshore processes in southwestern Australia

Charitha Pattiaratchi, B. Hegge, J. Gould, Ian Eliot

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

107 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In coastal regions sheltered from the direct impact of swell-and storm-wave activity, locally generated wind waves, particularly those associated with strong sea-breeze activity, play a dominant role in controlling nearshore and foreshore processes. Field data collected from the Perth Metropolitan Coast (western Australia) during a typical summer sea-breeze cycle, are presented. It is demonstrated that the nearshore environment responds rapidly to an increase in wind speed (up to 12 m s(-1)) during the sea breeze, resulting in considerable changes to the nearshore hydrodynamics and morphology. Incident wave energy increased during the sea breeze and was associated with development of a wind-wave field with significant wave heights up to 0.9 m. Nearshore currents responded to this change in wave climate with the development of net offshore near-bed currents and a rapid increase in the mean longshore current from
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1539-1560
JournalContinental Shelf Research
Volume17
Issue number13
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1997

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Impact of sea-breeze activity on nearshore and foreshore processes in southwestern Australia'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this