WAVE OVERTOPPING AT COASTAL STRUCTURES: DEVELOPMENT OF A DATABASE TOWARDS UP-GRADED PREDICTION METHODS

safe use of low lying and densely populated coastal regions depends critically on the performance of coastal structures in defending these areas against storm surges, wave attack, flooding and erosion. Continuing sea level rise and climate change (storms are becoming rougher) emphasise the need for reliable and robust predictions as higher storm surges and bigger storms may lead to flooding. Population pressures on land use in coastal regions have sometimes ignored age-old appreciation of coastal hazards. The CLASH research project EVK3-CT-2001-00058 is being funded by the EU to provide "Crest Level Assessment of coastal Structures by full scale monitoring, neural network prediction and Hazard analysis on permissible wave overtopping". It is intended to produce generally applicable prediction methods based on permissible wave overtopping and hazard analysis. This paper describes the general approach of this major European project and more specific the development of a homogeneous overtopping database, which will be the basis for the general prediction methods.