TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN APPROACH TO THE MODELLING AND DESIGN OF ARTIFICIAL SURF REEFS

Abstract

Most coastal protection projects consider amenity outcomes. Increasingly, surf amenity has become an important consideration. Artificial reefs have been promoted as creating coastal protection, surf amenity and ecological outcomes, however, delivering artificial reefs that provide sustained improvement in wave quality for surfing has proven challenging. This paper presents a novel and technology-driven approach for the design of artificial surfing reefs using the Southern Ocean Surf Reef (SOSR) project as an Australian case study. This proposed artificial reef at Middleton Beach, Albany consists of a submerged rock reef structure, the design of which has resulted from extensive investigations to optimise its performance. Results found that the SWASH model, when combined with Wave peel tracks (WPT) technology, was a valuable tool for valuating breaking mechanics of artificial reef surf breaks and designing and optimising the reef shapes that can be verified in physical modelling.