Estudio de la dinámica del oleaje en el litoral pacífico de Costa Ricametodologías de regionalización y avances en servicios relativos al clima marítimo

Abstract

Costa Rica neither possesses enough information about meteo-oceanographic variables nor advanced techniques of analysis in order to define the wave climate. The acquisition of these two aspects will contribute to a better resource management, and to impulse the economic growth of the region, in a most efficient and sustainable way. For this reason, the aim of the research is to assess the generation, propagation and interaction of ocean waves towards the coastal zone of the Pacific Ocean of Costa Rica, and by including an innovative variable, the infragravity waves, which are created by the irregular wave grouping along its propagation towards the coast. The objective of this research is to obtain the maritime climate conditions in Costa Rica for wind, water waves, infragravity waves and sea level, to be used by managers and engineers, to improve the knowledge of the coast processes such as: wave breaking, wave run-up and wave overtopping, applied for the design of natural and artificial structures, by proposing different climatic coastal services. The main product of this thesis, becomes concrete as a new met-ocean database, validated with field measurements (between 2014 and 2015 especially designed for this research) and using the ocean wave reanalysis deep waters as starting point (GOW2; IHCantabria), for the subsequent wave propagation (using an hybrid downscaling technique) and infragravity wave assess. This new obtained database (ROOL) include the hourly and historical met-ocean variables (1979 -2016) in the Nicoya’s Gulf region in the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica. This study proposes two alternatives for the exploitation of this new database, firstly, as main forcing for semi-empirical breakwater formulations for design (functional and structural), taking special attention to the 30% for the wave overtopping effects directly related to the infragravity wave energy. Secondly, a forecast system for ocean waves and infragravity waves within the Nicoya’s Gulf zone is created, validated with in situ measurements, taking into account the daily variability of the deep water wave predictions to evaluate the skill of the tool (valid for the first 3-day forecast). This new forecast system (SO3) will become a ready-to-use tool for coastal engineers and harbour managers in Costa Rica.