The international Coastal Dynamics conference has rapidlybecome one of the most important meetings for scientists ac-tive in the field of nearshore sciences and coastal evolution.The first event took place in 1994, and since 2001, the con-ference is held every 4 years, typically in Europe althoughonce in Japan in 2009. The Coastal Dynamics conferenceseries advances the community’s understanding of recent ap-plied and basic research concerning coastal waves and cur-rents, interactions between wind, water and sediments, andmorphology changes in the coastal zone. A wide range ofenvironments (with and without structures) are consideredsuch as sandy, rocky, and muddy coasts, inlets, and estuaries.The conference documents research and applications treatingthese coastal dynamics at the short, medium, and large/longspatial and temporal scales.The 7th International Conference on Coastal DynamicswasheldinJune23–26,2013,inthecityofArcachon,France.ItwasjointlyhostedbytheUniversityofBordeaux,theCentreNationaldelaRechercheScientifique(CNRS)andtheServiceHydrographique et Oceanographique de la Marine (SHOM),chaired by Dr. Philippe Bonneton and Dr. Thierry Garlan.Approximately 270 researchers from 27 countries attendedthe conference. At the conference, we had 137 oral and 51poster presentations, each associated with a full paper in theconference proceedings volume. The contributions were se-lected among more than 300 submitted abstracts, peerreviewed by an international technical abstract review com-mittee. During the conference, three keynote lectures weregiven by Gerben Ruessik, Huib de Swart and FabriceArdhuin. The conference also comprised two short coursesand two field trips in the Arcachon lagoon and adjacentbeaches. A gala dinner took place at the prestigious ChateauSmith-Haut-Lafitte. During the dinner, the organizing com-mittee honoured Prof. Peter Nielsen as theCoastalDynamics’13 coastal award winner, for his significant contri-bution in the field of coastal sediment transport. The organiz-ing committee also announced the Coastal Dynamics’13 beststudent presentation winners, Anouk de Bakker, MelissaMoulton and Gerad Dam and the Coastal Dynamics’13 beststudent poster winner Thibaud Revil-Baudard.For this Topical Collection, we had thus invited 15 papersthat were presented at the conference based on (1) the overallimpressionduringthepresentationattheconferenceincludingcommentsfromtheaudience,(2)ourownadditionalreviewofthe candidate papers and (3) scores and comments from thefirst abstract review round. The authors of these 15 paperswere further invited to submit a full scientific paper to meetthe Ocean Dynamics guidelines and to be evaluated throughits regular peer-review process. All 15 papers did pass thereviewround,asanticipated,giventhecriteriaoftheinvitationprocess.Roland and Ardhuin (2014) review the recent improve-ments in forcing fields, physical parametrizations andnumerical techniques of spectral wave models, which cannow provide highly accurate wave hindcasts and forecasts.Arns et al. (2015) propose a methodology to estimate region-alized return water levels at ungauged sites, illustrated by anapplicationtothenortherncoastofGermany.Twopapersdealwith modelling of interactions between hydrodynamics and