The impacts of wakes on coastal infrastructure and nearshore ecology are increasing issues of concern as the number of personal watercraft and commercial vessels have been growing for many years. The amplitude, shape, speed, and direction of ship wakes depends on vessel speed and size, water depth, bottom morphology, and distance to shore. Vessels operating in deep, open waters generally generate wakes that match linear solutions, but waves from vessels operating nearshore in confined and relatively shallow waters can display non-linear behavior. Wake formation can be a consideration in vessel design as they are an energy sink for vessels, reducing their fuel efficiency, and the wakes can be a hazard for coastal infrastructure and ecologies. Optical and radar imagery of wakes have shown promise as a method for identifying “dark” vessels that are often engaged in illegal activities.

Over roughly the last 10-20 years, there has been a surge of scientific research on ship wake generation, dynamics, detection, and impacts on other ships, coastal infrastructure, and shoreline ecology. This surge has largely been motivated by the increase in maritime commerce and fishing (both legal and illegal), with larger and more numerous vessels operating in the open ocean and coastal waters, and the development of new sensor and information technologies. To the best of our knowledge, there have been few to none peer-reviewed collection of articles, or review articles, published in recent years on the general topic of ship wakes.

The Research Topic we are proposing will provide a unique and needed set of research articles discussing the latest in ship wake studies, including theoretical advancements, numerical simulations, field measurements, and their implications for coastal conservation and vessel operations.

The following themes for ship wakes are welcomed to this Topic:

• wake generation and propagation

• interactions with coastal structures and the shoreline

• erosion and other hazards

• detection, filtering, and analysis

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Frontiers in Marine Science

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