Recovering water wave elevation from pressure measurements

TL;DR

This paper introduces a nonlinear method for reconstructing water wave elevation from pressure data, significantly improving accuracy over traditional linear approaches, especially for nonlinear and extreme wave conditions.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel nonlinear reconstruction method that outperforms linear transfer functions in accurately capturing complex wave shapes in shallow and intermediate waters.

Findings

Nonlinear method yields better surface elevation reconstruction.

Accurately reproduces peaked and skewed wave shapes.

Effective for extreme wave and sediment transport applications.

Abstract

The reconstruction of water wave elevation from bottom pressure measurements is an important issue for coastal applications, but corresponds to a difficult mathematical problem. In this paper we present the derivation of a method which allows the elevation reconstruction of water waves in intermediate and shallow waters. From comparisons with numerical Euler solutions and wave-tank experiments we show that our nonlinear method provides much better results of the surface elevation reconstruction compared to the linear transfer function approach commonly used in coastal applications. More specifically, our methodaccurately reproduces the peaked and skewed shape of nonlinear wave fields. Therefore, it is particularly relevant for applications on extreme waves and wave-induced sediment transport.