A NEW FULLY-AUTOMATIC PROCEDURE FOR THE IDENTIFICATION AND THE COUPLING OF THE OVERTOPPING WAVES

This contribution presents a new procedure for the automatic identification of the individual overtopping events. The procedure is based on a zero-down-crossing analysis of the water-surface-elevation signals and, based on two threshold values, can be applied to any structure crest level, i.e. to emerged, zero-freeboard, over-washed and submerged conditions. The results of the procedure are characterized by a level of accuracy comparable to the human-supervised analysis of the wave signals. The procedure includes a second algorithm for the coupling of the overtopping events registered at two consecutive gauges. This coupling algorithm offers a series of original applications of practical relevance, a.o. the possibility to estimate the wave celerities, i.e. the velocities of propagation of the single waves, which could be used as an approximation of the flow velocity in shallow water and broken flow conditions.