The Taipei Harbour in the northern part of Taiwan is a new harbour presently under construction. A long-time monitoring program of the coastal environments was launched a few years ago. Marine radar is used as the monitoring device.
The Institute of Harbour and River Engineering of the National Taiwan Ocean University started to analyze radar images a few years ago. Wavenumber-frequency spectra were obtained from radar image sequences through 3-D FFT. These were then used to extract information concerning wave heights and wave directions. The results, when compared with records from buoy measurements, were satisfactory. Some preliminary results of our studies are presented in this paper.
The industrialization of the world has made nature resources on land closing to the point of exhaustion; flouring world economies have pushed human activities seawards looking for recreation and leisure. All these will have heavy demands on the self-purification ability of the coastal water. On the other hand, sea level rises and increased extreme weather conditions due probably to global warming have raised the threats on coastal erosion. As a result, coastal areas have become more and more important, and this trend will continue in the foreseeable future.
To study wave climate as well as possible environmental impacts of a coastal structure, long-time records are needed. Information concerning wave fields around coastal and/or offshore structures are traditionally collected using wave staffs or buoys. These measuring devices are often denoted as direct measuring devices, since they need to have a direct contact with the water body. Even though these instruments can acquire data directly, but they are limited by the fact that, only point measurements can be performed. To acquire more information of the area under consideration, more devices must be employed.
