A coastal inundation simulation system was developed for the coast of the Pearl River estuary (PRE), which consists of an assimilation typhoon model and the coupled ADCIRC (Advanced Circulation) + SWAN (Simulating Waves Nearshore) model. The assimilation typhoon model consists of the Holland model and the analysis products of satellite images. This is the first time an assimilation typhoon model has been implemented and tested for coastal inundation via case studies. The simulation results of the system agree well with the real measurements. Three observed typhoon paths (Hope, Nida, and Hato) were chosen to be the studied paths based on their positions relative to the PRE, China. By comparing the results of experiments with different forcing fields, we determined that the storm surge and the coastal inundation were mainly induced by wind forcing. By simulating coastal inundation for different typhoon center speeds, the Hato3 path most easily causes coastal inundation in the PRE. Moreover, the moving speed of the typhoon’s center significantly affects the coastal inundation in the PRE. The inundation becomes very serious as the movement of the typhoon center was slow down. This study provides a new reference for future predictions of coastal inundations.

This study presents a risk prediction of coastal hazards induced by typhoons, which are a severe natural hazard that often occur in coastal regions. Taking the coastal hazards happened in Shenzhen as a case study, where is a southeast coastal city of China, we described a methodology to predict the typhoon wind-surge-wave hazard. A typhoon empirical tracking model was adopted to construct full-track typhoon events for 1000 years, based on the statistical characteristics of observed typhoons from satellite imageries. For each individual typhoon, a wind-field model is applied to compute the wind speeds, while the Simulating Waves Nearshore and Advanced Circulation (SWAN+ADCIRC) coupled model is applied to simulate the significant wave heights (SWHs) and storm surge heights. By frequency distribution histogram, it is noted that there exhibits a heavy tail in the probability distribution of maximum surge heights and a thin tail of the peak wind speeds and SWHs in the coastal area of Shenzhen, China. Using the Generalized Pareto Distribution (GPD) model, the extreme values of typhoon wind-surge-wave associated with various return periods can be predicted. Taking account into the combined effects of the wind, surge and wave, the joint hazard maps of typhoon wind-surge-wave can be produced for the study area. The methodology of this case study can provide a new reference for risk prediction of coastal hazards induced by typhoon in similar coastal regions like Shenzhen, China.

A comparative study was conducted on typhoon intensity factors affecting the marine environment using two representative cases: Typhoon Lekima, which made landfall at Shandong Peninsula, the Northern East China Sea, and Typhoon Muifa, which did not. Using the ADCIRC and SWAN models, we developed a coupled numerical model and applied it to simulate the storm surge and destructive waves caused by typhoons. Three typhoon parameters—maximum wind speed, radius of maximum wind speed, and translation speed—were investigated through sensitivity experiments. The storm surge during the typhoon that made landfall showed a positive correlation with the distance of the typhoon’s center. The maximum significant wave height and storm surge had near-linear growth with a maximum wind speed but decreased with the growth rate of the radius of maximum wind. A rapid typhoon translation speed from 47 km/h to 60 km/h could cause a storm surge resonance phenomenon at the northern coast of the East China Sea.