Butler HLInternational Conference on Coastal Engineering, 16th, Hamburg, W Germany, Aug 27-Sept 3, 1978, Proceedings, N Y , American Society of Civil Engineers, 1979 Vol 1, pp 1030-1048 19792010-02-152010-02-151978http://hdl.handle.net/1969.3/2290016th-SeptCoastal flooding in developed areas can be catastrophic. As an essential element in coastal water level prediction, a two-dimensional numerical model of long-period wave behavior is presented. The time dependency is treated implicitly for cost-effective simulation of coastal flooding from hurricane surges or other hydrodynamic phenomena such as extratropical storm surges, tides, tsunamis, etc. An important feature of the model is use of a coordinate transformation in the form of a piecewise exponential stretch. Such a technique permits simulation of a complex landscape by locally increasing grid resolution and/or aligning coordinates along physical boundaries. The model is applied to Galveston Bay, TX., for storm surge and coastal flooding from Hurricane ``Carla,'' 1961. Verification for the Galveston area was accomplished by using physical model data from simulations of free gravity waves (tide and design surge). Subsequent hindcasting of ``Carla'' produced good agreement between observed and computed surges with a mean absolute error of 0.18 m for peak elevationsCoastal floodingHurricane surgesM2 551.465.755 Atmospheric effects on the slope of the sea surface.Storm surgesM2 551.466.78 Tides near the coast.Shallow water sides.Boxes (mascarets)PredictionStorm surgesStorm tidesTidal floodsTidesWater LevelJournal