Oceanographic processes at coastal scales present a number of differences with respect to deep water oceanography, which result in higher prediction errors. The proximity of land boundaries affects the quality of wind fields used in numerical models. The land discharge (distributed as continental run off and point wise from river mouths) may also introduce an important effect in the simulated hydrodynamics.

In the shallow water coastal domains the bottom topography, via the sea-bed boundary condition, exerts a strong control on the resulting wave and current fields, therefore affecting, for instance, accurate prediction of surface velocities, sediment transport dynamics, mixing of fresh water discharged from land. Moreover, the integrated coupling between wind, waves, currents and sediments at such limited scales may also play a critical role in the predictions that can, in turn heavily impact coastal and search and rescue operations.

Coastal observations combine point wise data from multi variable buoys and data stations with high frequency radar images and automatically measured vertical profiles, which provide an excellent source of information for the coastal ocean. Satellite images are also an important data source although the quality of some satellite images degrades as we get closer to the shore line border. Because of those reasons it is timely to discuss the recent advances in:

a. high resolution modelling
b. the physics of coupling mechanisms and
c. coastal in-situ and remote observations.