Wave-generated flow on coral reefs—an analysis for two-dimensional horizontal reef-tops with steep faces

Abstract

Waves breaking on the seaward rim of a coral reef generate a flow of water from the exposed side of the reef to the sheltered side and/or to either channels through the reef-rim or lower sections of the latter. This wave-generated flow is driven by the water surface gradient resulting from the wave set-up created by the breaking waves. This paper reviews previous approaches to modelling wave-generated flows across coral reefs and discusses the influence of reef morphology and roughness upon these flows. Laboratory measurements upon a two-dimensional horizontal reef platform with a steep reef face provide the basis for extending a previous theoretical analysis for wave set-up on a reef in the absence of a flow [ Gourlay, M.R., 1996b. Wave set-up on coral reefs. 2. Set-up on reefs with various profiles. Coastal Engineering 28, 17–55] to include the interaction between a unidirectional flow and the wave set-up. The laboratory model results are then used to demonstrate that there are two basic reef-top flow regimes—reef-top control and reef-rim control. Using open channel flow theory, analytical relationships are derived for the reef-top current velocity in terms of the offreef wave conditions, the reef-top water depth and the physical characteristics of the reef-top topography. The wave set-up and wave-generated flow relationships are found to predict experimental values with reasonable accuracy in most cases. The analytical relationships are used to investigate wave-generated flows into a boat harbour channel on Heron Reef in the southern Great Barrier Reef.