Parametric wind wave modelling; Western Black Sea case study

Long term and continuous wave data are needed to solve coastal engineering problems. Since it is often extremely expensive and time consuming to measure wave parameters over long periods, it is necessary to predict wave parameters by using wind and pressure data. In addition to simplified empirical methods, numerical models can also be used in order to predict wave parameters. Since numerical methods are comprehensive and need advanced computer properties, simplifed methods are generally used for wave prediction. The objective of this study is to develop a wave hindcast model to predict wave parameters by using wave data. For this purpose, primarily existent numerical and empirical wave hindcast models have been investigated. A parametric wave hindcast model have been developed to predict directional wave parameters as time series. In this model, equations given by CERC (1984) have been used for wave height and wave period calculations and wind duration (t), wind speed (U), effective fetch lenght (F) existing in these equations have been determined by making some approaches. To predict wave direction, another assumption have been suggested, because there is no equation for wave direction in CERC (1984). Wave height, wave period and wave direction calculated as time series from developed model have been compared with measurements existing over 8.5 months at Karaburun region and obtained very compatible results for wave height. In this model, results for wave period and direction are acceptible. Keywords: Wave generation, wave hindcasting, empirical wave models, numerical wave models