COASTAL FLOODING HAZARD

Overview of the course program:

Introduction (4h)

Motivations and objectives
What is coastal flooding hazard
The drivers: the causes of coastal flooding
Effect of “Climate change” or “Global Warming” on sea level rise Mitigation measures:
examples

1. The effect of waves and setup (6 h)
Linear wave theory, wave kinematic
Irregular nature of the waves, Rayleigh distribution, definition of significant wave
Wave energy, wave transformation processes (shoaling, refraction, diffraction, breaking,
runup)
Shallow water eq. and coastal hydrodynamics, setup, longshore currents.
Surge. Depth of closure concept. Equilibrium profile. Brunn rule.
Longshore sediment transport. Cross-shore sediment transport. Aeolian transport. Dean
diffusive model.
Exercise in Matlab (Runup, Setup)


2. Tidal dynamics - Geophysical fluid dynamics (6h)
Description of the dynamics of the atmosphere and of the oceans and main drivers
for coastal flooding.
Domain Equations
Geostrophic wind, winds at the ocean, wind distribution, friction
Tide: physics. The Equilibrium Theory of Tides. The Lagrangian Tidal Equations.
Exercise in Matlab (application of LTE)

3. Surge (2 h)
The process. Evaluation of surge due to long-shore and cross shore currents. Exercise
in Matlab (Runup, Setup, Surge)

4. Erosion and sediment transport (2 h)
Longshore and cross-shore sediment transport. Aeolian transport.
Equilibrium profile. Brunn rule.
Vellinga model for dune erosion.
Dean diffusive model.
Exercise in Matlab (Dune erosion)


5. Mitigation measures (4h)
Possible adaptation measures (setback strategy, managed realignment, dike,
nourishment, water extraction control,...)

6. Extreme wave statistics and multivariate analysis (6h)
Estimation of extreme marine events, based on real data
Exercise in Matlab (maximum likelihood fit of 3 parameter distribution to a series of
hindcasted data)
Use of joint statistics to assess extreme events of tide and waves
Exercise in Matlab (application of copula)

7. Modelling coastal flood (2h)
Description of existing models (free operational & commercial)
Origin of operational wave modelling: the water directive, national and local regulations
Decision Support Systems for coastal flooding management

8. Producing flooding maps in Python + GIS (2h)
Application to a real case: production of a flood map

9. Reliability analysis (2h)
Failure mechanism for coastal flooding. Application in Matlab (level II method, 1D case)

10. Evaluation of the flooding hazard (4h)
How to produce a Coastal flooding map.
Mapping the expected value and economic costs related to flooding.
Evaluation of Coastal Flooding Index.
Interactions with river discharge and urban flooding (Tidal inlet)


Exercises in Matlab/Python (6h)

The students will be guided through the implementation of 2/3 simple exercises in
Matlab (or python, if preferred) among the following:

1) Evaluate max set-up
2) Bivariate statistics
3) Dune erosion
4) FEM and FD solution of Shoreline evolution
5) Flooding probability for 1D case with Level II method