Laboratory Investigations on wave energy dissipation over the edge of an oceanic atoll

Many oceanic atolls in the world have been developed as international tourist destinations for deep sea diving despite the fact that these coral reef islands are at the mercy of the attack of cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes. The storm effect and the anticipated sea level rise can be so severe that may pose pronounced change to the coastline of these atoll islands. Wave transformation of the incoming wave field as it crosses over the submerged atoll structure is not well documented in the literature. Also, the lack of coastal monitoring data on these romote islands has led to many uncertainties in the design and management of the shoreline for these islands. The aim of this research is to investigate wave trasnformation on an atoll structure via physical modelling. The experimental results are expected to provide useful information in engineering design of structures on reef islands, e.g. Pulau Layang-layang and the Spratlys in South China Sea.