FIELD MEASUREMENTS AND SWASH PARAMETERIZATION ON BEACHES

The wave runup, defined as the vertical oscillation of the water edge at the coast, is commonly used as criterion for coastal design projects and flooding/erosion risk analysis. Due to the complexity of nearshore wave processes, most runup studies are based on empirical approaches which directly relate these oscillations to the beach and offshore wave characteristics. However, there is still considerable debate about just how runup is related to these environmental parameters, as well as about the range of application of empirical models due to site specific conditions. Recent works emphasized the importance of including site specific conditions to reduce the scatter in available parameterizations. Parameters related to beach characteristics like the sediment size, the amount of reflection, wave spectral shape and morphodynamic beach state may improve runup predictions (Poate et al., 2016, Guza and Feddersen, 2012).