Field Observation and Numerical Modelling of Rip Currents within a Pocket Beach

Abstract

Understanding the occurrence mechanism of rip currents are very important in terms of the sediment transport and the water safety issues. In order to investigate the rip current occurrence mechanism, field observations were carried out at Chunjin beach and a numerical model was employed to simulate rip currents by using the field observation data. The collected data set includes the beach topography, bottom bathymetries, shoreline, sand sample, and incident waves for each season. The field observation data showed the spatiotemporal variations of shoreline and sand bars. The results also showed that the rip currents were generated near the crescentic sand bar. For better understanding the mechanism of rip currents, numerical simulation using phase- resolving, three-dimensional 3D Non-Hydrostatic WAVE Model (NH WAVE) was also carried out. The model considered incoming wave conditions collected from the field observation to look at the nearshore current generation patterns. Through this numerical model, this study could have investigated vertical profiles of nearshore wave-induced current while the field observation data represent depth uniform currents. The numerical simulation showed a good agreement with the field observation and provided useful information for nearshore circulation.