Coastal hydrodynamics – present and future

This paper gives a personal view of the state of coastal hydrodynamics, mainly from a modelling perspective. The traditional areas of tidal flows and wave propagation are highlighted first. Their impact is evolving due to climate change generally and sea level rise particularly with massive economic and human consequences, raising the importance of coastal hydrodynamics. The emerging renewable energy technologies of offshore wind, tidal stream, wave and possibly tidal barrage will further dramatically expand the coastal hydrodynamics domain in the near future. The emerging methods of smoothed particle hydrodynamics for fluid-solid interaction and adjoint modelling for improved surge and tidal prediction are considered. Some of the broader issues of large-scale morphodynamics are also discussed.