Oceanographic processes at coastal scales present a number of differences with respect to deep water oceanography, which result in higher prediction errors. In shallow water coastal domains the bottom topography, via the sea-bed boundary condition, exerts a strong control on the resulting wave and current fields. In addition to this, other factors need to be accounted for, such as the relevance of the tidal influence, stratification and mixing effects, land boundary condition (affecting the wind fields), the presence of distributed run off and point-wise river mouths.
Moreover, the coupling between wind, waves, currents and sediments at limited scales, or even the choice of the numerical strategy (including the option between nested meshes or a variable grid) may also play a critical role in the quality of the predictions.
Coastal observations are therefore necessary to drive numerical models, combining point-wise data from multi variable buoys, and high frequency radar images and a number of satellite images, the accuracy of which however tends to degrade as we get closer to the shoreline border.
Because of the above mentioned reasons, it is timely to discuss the recent advances in integrated ocean-atmosphere-sediment modeling approach, in the physics of coupling mechanisms and coastal in-situ observations.