NSW Nearshore Wave Buoy Data (2016 - 2023)

Wind wave observations in shallow coastal waters are essential for calibrating, validating, and improving numerical wave models to predict sediment transport, shoreline change, and coastal hazards such as beach erosion and oceanic inundation. Nearshore wave conditions may vary considerably alongshore, for the same offshore wave condition, due to coastline orientation and shape, bathymetry and islands.

This data descriptor includes a snapshot of an ongoing dataset of in-situ wave buoy observations from shallow waters (< 35 m) in New South Wales, Australia. By the end of 2023 that dataset comprised over 7,000 days of wave measurements at 20 locations. Temporarily moored GPS/GNSS wave buoys have been used to measure wave conditions continuously for several months to multiple years at each location, capturing ambient and storm conditions in diverse settings, including coastal hazard risk sites. The dataset includes time series of standard spectral and time-domain parameters describing wave height, period and direction at half-hourly temporal resolution. Buoy displacement data and wave spectra data are also provided for advanced applications. The nearshore wave data will interest coastal oceanography and processes researchers and practitioners. The data have been collected and processed by the NSW Government Environment Coastal and Marine Science team.

A snapshot of this data (up to 18/01/2024) has been assigned a DOI and will be maintained in perpetuity by the Australian Ocean Data Network (AODN). The ongoing version of this dataset is freely available through the National Wave Archive on the AODN Portal (https://catalogue-imos.aodn.org.au:443/geonetwork/srv/api/records/2807f3aa-4db0-4924-b64b-354ae8c10b58) – follow the link and access the ‘NetCDF files via THREDDS catalog (NSW-DPE)’ dataset.