Morphodynamics of Rip Current Systems at Haeundae Beach, Korea

Abstract

Lee, J. and Hong, S., 2023. Morphodynamics of rip current systems at Haeundae Beach, Korea. Journal of Coastal Research, 39(1), 199-206. Charlotte (North Carolina), ISSN 0749-0208. Rip current generation and beach morphodynamics were measured for about 60 days at Haeundae Beach, Busan, Korea, using various instruments comprising co-located velocity and pressure sensors, ADCPs, and kinematic GPS surveys. Rip currents are narrow currents initiated close to the shoreline that flow strongly in a seaward direction through the surf zone and beyond. It is generally accepted that rip currents arise mostly from the variation of wave height alongshore attritutable to wave refraction over inhomogeneous bathymetry. Field measurement was performed to clarify the generation mechanism of rip currents at Haeundae Beach, Korea. The creation and destruction of sandbars could be identified clearly using data from a photogrammetric survey taken from the roof of a high building during the summer season. In this study, a surf-zone depth survey was performed periodically using Network Real-Time Kinematic GPS, a device that can provide a detailed topographic survey of the surf-zone region. Using these data, we perform a correlation analysis between rip current generation and surf-zone morphological variation. © 2023 Coastal Education and Research Foundation, Inc.