Coastal impact assessment of a generic wave farm operating in the Romanian nearshore

The present work is focused on the evaluation of the coastal impact of a generic wave farm that would operate in the Romanian nearshore. The target area considered for analysis is located in the Black Sea, in the vicinity of the Saint George arm of the Danube River, which is a sector where the erosion processes are very high. A first perspective concerning the wave conditions close to this coastal environment is provided by analyzing the in situ measurements coming from the Gloria drilling unit. As a further step, the influence of a generic wave farm on the nearshore climate was assessed, based on some relevant scenarios which consider average, energetic and extreme wave conditions. Numerical simulations are performed with the SWAN (Simulating Waves Nearshore) spectral model, where the generic wave farm was modeled as an obstacle defined by a sequence of corner points of a line. A general perspective on the wave field evolution is provided by increasing the absorbing property of the farm, from zero (no wave farm) to a total absorption scenario. In the final part of the work, an assessment of the longshore currents was also carried out by considering a 1D surf model.