Extraction of wave information from NOAA's water level measurement network

Long-term coastal wave data are useful information for public safety, coastal erosion studies, coastal flood planning, and coastal engineering projects because of great spatial variability along the coast lines. The collection of such data, however, is quite difficult and expensive. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of obtaining surface wave information from existing NOAA Next Generation Water Level Measurement Systems (NGWLMS) along the U.S. coasts. The present effort shows that with proper consideration of the filtering effect in NGWLMS, surface wave information can be extracted from the one Hertz rate water level measurements. The non-directional wave data were compared with wave measurements obtained from dedicated wave gages at an east and west coast sites and good agreement was observed. Coastal wave data obtained from these water level measurement stations will complement the existing coastal and offshore wave data provided by the U.S. Corps of Engineers and NOAA/NWS National Data Buoy Center, respectively.