Sediment produced on fringing coral reefs that is transported along the bed or in suspension affects ecological reef communities as well as the morphological development of the reef, lagoon, and adjacent shoreline. This study quantified the physical process contribution and relative importance of sea‐swell waves, infragravity waves, and mean currents to the spatial and temporal variability of sediment in suspension. Estimates of bed shear stresses demonstrate that sea‐swell waves are the key driver of the suspended sediment concentration (SSC) variability spatially (reef flat, lagoon, and channels) but cannot fully describe the SSC variability alone. The comparatively small but statistically significant contribution to the bed shear stress by infragravity waves and currents, along with the spatial availability of sediment of a suitable size and volume, is also important. Although intratidal variability in SSC occurs in the different reef zones, the majority of the variability occurs over longer slowly varying (subtidal) timescales, which is related to the arrival of large swell waves at a reef location. The predominant flow pathway, which can transport suspended sediment, consists of cross‐reef flow across the reef flat that diverges in the lagoon and returns offshore through channels. This pathway is primarily due to subtidal variations in wave‐driven flows but can also be driven alongshore by wind stresses when the incident waves are small. Higher frequency (intratidal) current variability also occurs due to both tidal flows and variations in the water depth that influence wave transmission across the reef and wave‐driven currents.

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Tropical coral reef-lined coasts are exposed to storm wave-driven flooding. In the future, flood events during storms are expected to occur more frequently and to be more severe due to sea-level rise, changes in wind and weather patterns, and the deterioration of coral reefs. Hence, disaster managers and coastal planners are in urgent need of decision-support tools. In the short-term, these tools can be applied in Early Warning Systems (EWS) that can help to prepare for and respond to impending storm-driven flood events. In the long-term, future scenarios of flooding events enable coastal communities and managers to plan and implement adequate risk-reduction strategies. Modeling tools that are used in currently available coastal flood EWS and future scenarios have been developed for open-coast sandy shorelines, which have only limited applicability for coral reef-lined shorelines. The tools need to be able to predict local sea levels, offshore waves, as well as their nearshore transformation over the reefs, and translate this information to onshore flood levels. In addition, future scenarios require long-term projections of coral reef growth, reef composition, and shoreline change. To address these challenges, we have formed the UFORiC (Understanding Flooding of Reef-lined Coasts) working group that outlines its perspectives on data and model

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The Australian marine research, industry, and stakeholder community has recently undertaken an extensive collaborative process to identify the highest national priorities for wind-waves research. This was undertaken under the auspices of the Forum for Operational Oceanography Surface Waves Working Group. The main steps in the process were first, soliciting possible research questions from the community via an online survey; second, reviewing the questions at a face-to-face workshop; and third, online ranking of the research questions by individuals. This process resulted in 15 identified priorities, covering research activities and the development of infrastructure. The top five priorities are 1) enhanced and updated nearshore and coastal bathymetry; 2) improved understanding of extreme sea states; 3) maintain and enhance the in situ buoy network; 4) improved data access and sharing; and 5) ensemble and probabilistic wave modeling and forecasting. In this paper, each of the 15 priorities is discussed in detail, providing insight into why each priority is important, and the current state of the art, both nationally and internationally, where relevant. While this process has been driven by Australian needs, it is likely that the results will be relevant to other marine-focused nations.

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Rocky reef coastlines typically feature highly variable and often abrupt cross‐shore and alongshore changes in bathymetry. The effects of this irregular rocky bathymetry on the dynamics of infragravity waves are largely unknown. Most models of infragravity wave dynamics have been developed and validated on smooth alongshore‐uniform bathymetries, which may break down over these highly variable bathymetries. A 2 week field experiment was conducted on a rocky reef‐fringed beach to investigate how the variable bathymetry affects the spatial and temporal variability of infragravity waves. The height of short (sea‐swell) waves decreased over the shallow reef due to breaking, whereas the height of infragravity waves increased toward the shoreline. Both during a storm event (Hm0 = 2.3 m) and under moderate wave conditions (Hm0 = 1.0–1.8 m), the infragravity waves formed a persistent cross‐shore standing wave pattern along the entire shoreline, despite the irregular bathymetry. In addition, the alongshore components of infragravity waves refracted by the presence of the nearshore reef were observed to propagate in opposite directions up and down the coast resulting in a local alongshore standing wave pattern. Thus, the presence of highly variable nearshore bathymetry, which commonly occurs along rocky reef coastlines, may produce both cross‐shore and alongshore standing wave patterns.

The rates of water exchange between coastal reef systems and the surrounding ocean are key physical drivers of water quality and reef ecosystems. It is generally assumed that water exiting a reef system through reef channels is predominantly replaced by 'new' water from offshore. However, exiting water may also recirculate back into the reef system reducing the rate of exchange between the reef and the ocean, which has implications for reef water temperatures, nutrient fluxes and population connectivity. To quantify flow re-entrainment at a rocky reef site in southwestern Australia, flow patterns were measured with GPS-tracked drifters during a two-week field experiment. The field observations were extended via a set of idealized numerical experiments to determine the effect of variable oceanic forcing and reef geometry on flow re-entrainment. The observations demonstrate that re-entrainment can vary significantly and the numerical results support the hypothesis that re-entrainment increases with increasing offshore wave height, increasing alongshore currents outside of the reef, and decreasing reef channel spacing but is largely not impacted by reef roughness. Reentrainment was correlated with a predictor variable R, which is a measure of wave forcing versus the total offshore flow cross-section, and alongshore currents outside the reef. For large values of R and strong alongshore currents, flow re-entrainment increases the effective flushing time by a factor of three or more. The results suggest that flow re-entrainment may be particularly important in small-scale reef systems or reefs exposed to an energetic wave climate and/or strong alongshore currents.