With the increase in storminess due to climate change induced sea level rise, coastal protection solutions need to be able to contend with larger storms, resulting in larger incident waves, on a more regular basis. Many traditional coastal protection systems like vertical seawalls are proving to be expensive to design for the increased overtopping associated with this change in coastal conditions. As such, there is a rapidly growing need to develop novel and innovative design solutions to replace traditional coastal defences such as vertical seawalls. By looking at the lessons learned from three projects (Dawlish, MOG2 and CASINO), it is proposed that the use of physical modelling to inform design is a solution to the problem presented by the lack of guidelines applicable to the rapidly changing field of coastal structures design.
