Extreme waves for Kuwaiti territorial waters

The extreme significant wave heights and the corresponding wave periods were predicted for return periods of 12, 25, 50, 100 and 200 yr for 19 different locations in Kuwaiti territorial waters. Though the total coast length of Kuwait is only about 500 km including all islands and the total area of the Kuwaiti territorial water is about 7611 km2, the extreme significant wave height vary from 1.86 to 4.02 m for 100 yr return period, among these 19 locations. In general Weibull distribution is found to fit the data well compared to the Gumbel distribution. The input wave data for the present work is obtained by hind casting waves using a WAM model. Wave data is hindcasted for a total period of 12 yr, starting from 1 January 1993 to 31 December 2004. From the joint probability of wave height and wave period, a simple polynomial relationship is obtained between the significant wave height and mean period for all the 19 locations. It is found that the wave period for wave heights of 100 yr return period cannot exceed 6.5 s. A large number of coastal projects are in progress and many new projects are planned for the near future in the Kuwaiti territorial waters. The results of the present study will be highly useful for optimal design of these projects.