Characteristics of Monochromatic Waves Breaking over Fringing Reefs

Yao, Y.; Huang, Z.H.; Monismith, S.G., and Lo, E.Y.M., 2013. Characteristics of monochromatic waves breaking over fringing reefs. A fringing reef is a reef that is directly attached to a shore. Since fringing reefs resemble plane beaches in some aspects, it is important to understand the similarities and discrepancies between the wave breaking over fringing reefs and the wave breaking over plane beaches. With an idealized fringing reef (a plane sloping fore reef and a submerged horizontal reef flat), a series of laboratory experiments were conducted in a wave flume to understand how the reef-flat submergence and the fore-reef slope may affect the characteristics of wave breaking over fringing reefs. The results show that the relative reef-flat submergence (the ratio of the reef-flat submergence to the wave height) is an important factor to characterize most wave-breaking features (the breaker type and location, the surf-zone width, and the incipient breaker depth index). The influence of the fore-reef slope appears to be insignificant in our experimental conditions. The findings in this study can be used to calibrate or improve some existing analytical or numerical models developed for cross-shore wave transformation, wave-induced setup and wave-driven flow over fringing reefs.