Rakha, K., Al-Salem K. and Neelamani, S., 2007. Hydrodynamic Atlas for the Arabian Gulf. Journal of Coastal Research, SI 50 (Proceedings of the 9th International Coastal Symposium), 550 – 554. Gold Coast, Australia, ISSN 0749.0208

Long term wave data is important for the design of coastal structures and for the calculation of sediment transport rates. Such data is usually obtained by hindcasting waves from wind data. The use of simplistic hindcasting formulas will not provide realistic data. In this study a third-generation wind driven wave model WAM is used to generate 12 years of wave data for the Arabian Gulf. The WAM model is a two dimensional model that uses non-stationary and non-homogeneous wind fields in predicting wind waves. The RMA-10 hydrodynamic model was also used to generate data on tidal currents and water levels in the Gulf for a period of 13 months. All the data produced was stored in a digital geographic data base that was developed to provide a user friendly environment for data visualisation and extraction. The data showed that the maximum significant wave height in the Gulf is 5.5 m for data covering a period of 12 years and the maximum tidal water level fluctuations are of the order of 4.0 m.