Review of Waves in Oceanic and Coastal Waters by Leo H. Holthuijsen: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.; 2007; ISBN-10: 0521860288; ISBN-13: 978–0521860284. Price $90.

The recent publication of Waves in Oceanic and Coastal Waters by Cambridge University Press is certain to fill empty spaces on many desks, and deservedly so. Its author, Dr. Leo Holthuijsen of Delft University of Technology, has distilled his decades of experience into a clear description of water waves and their dynamics and prediction. The result will be useful as a reference for many practitioners and may also be used as an introductory text for graduate-level courses.

Two aspects of this book stand out, the first being the clarity of presentation. Key concepts are given at the beginning of every chapter and serve both as an aid to reading and as a summary afterward. The book’s most important concepts are boxed and highlighted when introduced, making them impossible to miss. Even figures contain clarifications that no doubt arose after years of teaching (my favorites being the probability density functions in Chapter 4 that read “this is not a spectrum!” directly on the figure).

The difficulty level is somewhere in the middle of the range: more technical than might be found in a purely descriptive text, but with less formality than in more theoretical treatments of water waves. In some ways, this gives the best of both worlds: when new material is introduced, it is described clearly and in context before technical results are introduced or derived. Some fundamental but lengthier derivations and explanations are given in appendices rather than the body of the text. This aids understanding, making it one of the most readable texts I have seen.

The second laudable aspect of this book is its scope, which contains useful information over almost the entire field of water waves. This may be seen from the chapter descriptions: After the first chapter’s short introduction, Chapter 2 gives a summary of wave observation techniques from buoys to synthetic aperture radar satellite measurements. Chapter 3 gives a description of ocean waves, starting with easy-to-understand definitions of wave height and period before moving on to the more complex but fundamental concept of the wave spectrum. Both unidirectional and directional spectra are covered, and even a short but welcome description of the spectral behavior of transfer functions is included. Chapter 4 gives an introduction to short- and long-term wave statistics, with results on everything from the maximum wave expected during a storm to a comprehensive description of long-term wave statistics with both theoretical results and practical applications.

Chapter 5 introduces linear wave theory for deep oceanic waters, including associated results for energy transport, and also gives a very brief introduction to nonlinear wave theories. Chapter 6 builds on these results to examine wave processes in deep oceanic waters. This chapter is particularly useful, starting with wave generation by wind for idealized cases, moving on to a description of real frequency and directional spectra, and ending with a good basic description of the processes and techniques involved in wave modeling in deep water. Chapter 7 changes the setting from deep to coastal waters, introducing linear wave processes relating to shoaling, refraction, diffraction, and currents. The remainder of the chapter gives results on radiation stresses, setup, and wave-induced currents, and ends with a short description of breaking waves. Chapter 8 also deals with coastal waters, but focuses on modeling. The chapter begins with the relatively simple case of waves generated by a constant wind in limited depth and describes methods to predict wave height and spectral characteristics. Modeling for arbitrary cases then introduces the spectral wave energy and action balance equations for finite depths, and gives examples. The chapter ends with a description of finite depth source and sink terms for wave generation, dissipation, and nonlinear interactions, and how these affect the wave spectrum. Chapter 9 ends the book with an introduction to SWAN, the open source spectral wave model.

The material in this relatively compact volume thus brings together in one location most of the wave knowledge needed by a practitioner in coastal and ocean engineering or science. I know of no other single book with this scope of useful wave information. Particularly useful are the descriptions of wave growth in idealized cases for both deep and shallow water, which are not included in some other texts. Overall the content is tilted toward that which is necessary for spectral wave modeling, which makes sense, given the author’s expertise. Because of this tilt, some topics receive more cursory treatment, with nonlinear wave theories, Boussinesq equations, wave-induced currents, and some numerical details being examples. However, this is not a fault but rather a limitation, and these topics are well covered in other publications.

I see no omissions of essential material and few occasions on which I would disagree with the emphasis (the neglect of acoustic Doppler techniques for measuring waves, which are now standard in many situations, is the only one worth mentioning). Future editions would also do well to have a student problem section at the end of each chapter to improve it as a textbook, but this is relatively minor. (The back cover states that problems and solutions may be found online, but I could not find any at the given Web address.)

Overall, this book is well worth obtaining and will prove useful for anyone who deals with water waves.