Project background
Defra
s leading a strategic initiative to monitor the wave conditions along long stretches of the
coastline thus forming a National wave monitoring network. These will be supplemented by local initiatives to monitor the local inshore wave regime.
Cefas and the Met Office have been commissioned by Defra to develop a wave buoy monitoring network (Cefas) and similarly a coastal HF wave radar network (Met Office). This follows a report from HR Wallingford (TR122) which suggested that the main benefits of a wave network would be the provision of the following data:
- Historic wave data for use in coastal defence studies and validation of numerical wave models
- (after about five years) historic wave data for use in climate change studies
- near real-time wave data for use by the Environment Agency in coastal flood forecasting and warning
- near real-time wave data for use by the UKMO as input to operational wave forecasting models
- free internet access to both near real-time and historic wave data for use in the port, leisure construction and access operations ,and by the public
Two types of data will be recorded - a limited number of high quality point measurements and HF radar giving spatial coverage at a lower accuracy. This data would provide near "real-time"November 30, 2006s and would be freely available to stakeholders, consultants, academics and the public. After several years this data would be available to provide robust estimates of wave climate at key locations around the UK coastline. Two classes of data would be available - near real-time with limited Quality Assurance (QA) available within a few hours or less and QA post-processed data after a few weeks.
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