This study integrated coastal watershed models and combined them with a risk assessment method to develop a methodology to investigate the impact resulting from coastal disasters under climate change. The mid-western coast of Taiwan suffering from land subsidence was selected as the demonstrative area for the vulnerability analysis based on the prediction of sea level rise (SLR), wave run-up, overtopping, and coastal flooding under the scenarios of the years from 2020 to 2039. Databases from tidal gauges and satellite images were used to analyze SLR using Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD). Extreme wave condition and storm surge were estimated by numerical simulation using the Wind Wave Model (WWM) and the Princeton Ocean Model (POM). Coastal inundation was then simulated via the WASH123D watershed model. The risk map of study areas based on the analyses of vulnerability and disaster were established using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. Predictions of sea level rise, the maximum wave condition, and storm surge under the scenarios of 2020 to 2039 are presented. The results indicate that the sea level at the mid-western coast of Taiwan will rise by an average of 5.8 cm, equivalent to a rising velocity of 2.8 mm/year. The analysis indicates that the Wuqi, Lukang, Mailiao, and Taixi townships are susceptive, low resistant and low resilient and reach the high-risk level. This assessment provides important information for creating an adaption policy for the mid-western coast of Taiwan.

Overuse of coastal regions may lead to coastal erosion and shoreline retreat, threatening the inherent life and property of the coast. This is because typhoon waves with storm surges frequently attack overdeveloped coasts and related structures. In the present study, coastal buffer and protection zones were defined for the management of coastal disasters. The coastal buffer zone may offer remarkable advantages to avoid improper coastal use and limit the impact of extreme events by reducing erosion, mitigating coastal disasters, improving water quality, expanding habitats, and minimizing coastal degradation. Further, factors affecting the establishment of coastal buffer zones were classified according to natural and anthropogenic characteristics. Moreover, regarding the direction of research into coastal buffer zones, themes and countermeasures for coastal buffer zone management were discussed from the perspectives of technology, planning, and management policies. Finally, the application of numerical models to assess the impact factors in coastal buffer zones are proposed.

In this paper, the problem of the interaction between a periodic linear wave and offshore aquatic vegetation is investigated. The aquatic vegetation field is considered as a flexible permeable system. A vegetation medium theory is proposed based on Lan–Lee’s poro-elastomer theory, in which linearizing vegetation friction resistance is used to describe fluid motion in the vegetation medium. The study involves boundary conditions for free surface water in emergent vegetation media that have been of less concern in previous studies. The analytical solutions of the vegetation medium and wave fields are derived by the partitioning method combined with matching boundary conditions for neighboring regions. An estimation formula for a modification factor is proposed to evaluate the linear vegetation friction coefficient, which can reasonably compare the analytical solution with relevant past cases in terms of wave transmission. Wave reflection, transmission, and attenuation induced by the effects of the characteristics of the vegetation are studied. The results indicate that an increase in the drag coefficient, stem diameter, stem density, spatial coverage, and plant stiffness leads to the emergency vegetation inducing higher wave energy dissipation and reducing the wave transmission. Vegetation stiffness is a significant factor affecting the drag coefficient.

A finite-element method (FEM) is used to simulate water wave propagation with large angle incidence at exterior boundaries. In this paper, the radiation boundary condition is expanded to a second-order approximation and a quadratic shape function is used in the FEM wave model. Cases used for verifications include wave scattering around a vertical cylinder and wave propagation over a submerged circular shoal with concentric contours. Numerical calculations based on this second-order radiation boundary condition are found to be in good agreement with theoretical and experimental results available. The numerical predictions show that this model has made a very good improvement over the first-order radiation boundary conditions for oblique wave incidence in coastal engineering.

The paper presents results of field and theoretical investigations of wave transformation in the surf zone near the IBW PAN Coastal Research Station in Lubiatowo (Poland, the south Baltic Sea). The study site displays multi-bar cross-shore profiles that intensively dissipate wave energy, mostly induced by breaking. The main field data comprise wave heights and cross-shore bathymetric profiles.Wave transformation is modelled theoretically by two approaches, namely the IBW PAN phase-averaged wave transformation model and the approach based on the hydraulic jump model, developed by Hsu & Lai (2009) for hydrological situations encountered under the actual conditions of two field campaigns - in 1987 and 1996. Discrepancies between the measured data and the model results are discussed. In general, the model results are in good agreement with the in-situ observations. The comparison of the field data with the computational results concerns a part of the surf zone between about 5 m water depth and the first nearshore stable bar, where the depth amounts to ca. 1.2 m.