Using Porous Seawalls to Protect the Coasts Against Sea Level Rise

Climate change is considered one of the hottest global environmental problems facing the world community. The sea level rising is a associated phenomena to this climate change. This phenomenon has directly affected on many sectors such as water resources, coastal zones, agriculture, rangeland and livestock, human health, human settlements, energy, forest and bio-diversity. Without serious adaptation measures, millions of peoples will be displaced from their homes. In addition to the loss of productive land will have serious implications on job opportunities, food availability and population movement. In this study, the hydrodynamic efficiency of a porous seawall, may be used in protecting coasts from probable SLR, is experimentally studied using physical models. The seawall consists of front steel screen, back solid wall and filled rock- core. A submerged breakwater with different parameters is installed in front of the seawall to decrease the wave action on the seawall. The wave run-up on the seawall and the wave reflection due to the seawall with or without the submerged breakwater are investigated, in addition to the wave transmission due to the submerged breakwater.