Comparison of wave height interpolation with wavelet refined cubic spline and fractal methods

Abstract This study presents two new methods for significant wave height interpolation, and compares the results from them with the cubic spline method for different durations of wave record gaps. Information about wave height is important for planning and design applications in both coastal and offshore engineering. However many gaps exist in the records and they are not necessarily small. Although a number of previous studies have attempted to fill the gaps in wave height records, most of the interpreted results are not satisfactory. In this paper, the wavelet refined cubic spline method and fractal method are applied to improve interpolation accuracy. Results indicate that both methods show advantages over the cubic spline method, on the average, for the whole dataset. However, further analysis reveals that the methods introduced in this paper are not as effective as the cubic spline method for all gap sizes. The methods are implemented and compared at two study areas having quite different patterns of wave height.