Review of Mechanics of Coastal Sediment Transport by Jorgen Fredsoe and Rolf Deigaard

Abstract

Sedimentation processes in coastal areas are fascinating. The analysis of sediment transport under steady flow seems complex enough that one can only welcome this analytical treatment of sediment transport under wind and tidal waves in coastal areas. The book is the third volume of a set of four titles published by World Scientific in the broad area of Advanced Series on Ocean Engineering. The first volume is entitled The Applied Dynamics of Ocean Surface Waves by C.C. Mei. The second volume is Water Wave Mechanics for Engineers and Scientists by R.G. Dean and R.A. Dalrymple. The fourth volume is entitled Coastal Bottom Boundary Layers by P. Nielsen. This third volume is divided into 12 chapters: (1) “Basic concepts and potential wave theory”; (2) “Wave boundary layers”; (3) “Bed friction and turbulence in wave-current motion”; (4) “Waves in the surf zone”; (5) “Wave-driven currents”; (6) “Current velocity distribution in the surf zone”; (7) “Basic concepts of sediment transport”; (8) “Vertical distribution of suspended sediment waves and current over a plane bed”; (9) “Current-generated bed waves”; (10) “Wave-generated bed forms”; (11) “Cross-shore sediment transport and coastal profile development”; and (12) “Long-shore sediment transport and coastline development”. The title of this text is very appropriate. The book is intended for graduate students and describes the processes of sediment transport and how to represent them in mathematical models. The book is divided into two main parts. The first relates to hydrodynamic theory and the second to sediment transport and morphological development. The hydrodynamic part first reviews the elementary theory of water waves, followed with chapters on the turbulent wave boundary layer and turbulent interaction between waves and currents, and finally covers surf zone hydrodynamics and wave-driven currents. The part on sediment transport introduces the basic concepts (critical bed shear stress, bed load, suspended load and sheet layer, near-bed concentration and sloping bed); it treats suspended sediment in waves and current and in the