The introduction to this book states that it has been written primarily for students, and is based in part on taught modules in coastal processes and engineering. I reviewed this book from the perspective of a practitioner, although there is no doubt that it will be a boon for students to have the whole syllabus in one book. The breadth and depth of content that the authors have managed to include in 416 pages (of which 18 are references) makes it a book to dip into, rather than read from cover to cover, but the extent of coverage is impressive. As well as being a useful reference book in its own right, it is extremely useful to have a single starting-point for graduates who are new to coastal engineering. In the process of reviewing this title my colleagues and I have directed graduates towards the book as a starting-point for their investigations. Their feedback has been that the book is well structured and easy to use. However, considering that it is targeted at final-year graduates and above, the book contains some complex language and concepts from the introduction onwards.
The introduction covers the historical context of coastal engineering, then takes the reader on a whistle-stop tour of how waves act on beaches, coastal features, coastal cells and bays, and then leads, still in the introduction, into coastal zone management principles, different types of shoreline, factors influencing coastal behaviour, and the questions an engineer needs to ask in order to begin to understand a coastline's behaviour. Each following chapter is similarly ambitious in its scope, covering wave theory, design wave specification, coastal water level variation, coastal transport processes, coastal morphology, analysis modelling and prediction, design, reliability and risk, field measurements and physical models, and conceptual and detailed design.
The book is very much written from the theoretical perspective, and takes the reader through the derivation of many equations. At each point, the book directs the student to the implications from each derivation. For example, a subsection on the influence of water depth on wave characteristics ends with a paragraph on the consequences of this influence factor on shoaling and refraction, and the implications on sediment transport. I find this to be a good lead from theory to practice, to make sure that the reader understands why they need to know these things. In addition, the structure of the book includes example calculations within the main body of the book, using the segment of theory previously explained. The segments end by directing the reader to the latest research, or to more detailed explanations published elsewhere.
The book has excellent diagrams throughout. The photographs are not as consistently good, and some suffer from the effects of black and white reproduction. There is the occasional typo—Prandtl is spelt in a variety of ways, for example—but I did not find any that affected clarity. There are some areas where the book is less detailed, but the reader is always directed towards further work, for example that of Silvester et al. on beach plan shape.
In summary, I found the book to be a very good reference tool, and of value to practitioners as well as students. The book is very up to date and includes many recent references.
