SIX thousand tropical storms have battered the Great Barrier Reef off the
northeastern coast of Australia in just five years. Luckily the cyclones only
existed inside a computer, but they have allowed researchers to design an
interactive CD, which should help engineers to build safer platforms for
tourists to soak up the view and marine biologists to chart the habitats of
marine organisms.
The idea was a response to the growing number of pontoons anchored on the
reef in past ten years. These pontoons can be up 100 metres long and serve as
platforms for viewing or diving. Tourists and marine biologists can even spend
the night there. The pontoons are not easy to move so they must be built to
withstand tropical cyclones. To make the designs safe, engineers need to know
the size and frequency of waves they are likely to come up against.
A team from James Cook University and the Cooperative Research Centre for the
Sustainable Development of the Great Barrier Reef has spent the past five years
battering a virtual model of the reef with over 6000 computer-generated tropical
cyclones to create a realistic database of wave data for engineers and marine
biologists.
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Creating the database was no mean task in a complex environment where more
than 2900 individual reefs run in many different directions in a band stretching
at least 2000 kilometres. The Great Barrier Reef can be 50 kilometres wide in
places and up to 100 kilometres from the coast. In addition, the transition
between relatively deep sea beds and shallow reefs is abrupt.
鈥淭hese data are essential for engineering design on the reef,鈥� says Tom
Hardy, who heads the research team. 鈥淒esigners not only need to know how big
waves can get during a tropical cyclone but also the effect of the normal trade
winds. That is important to the comfort of passengers.鈥�
The fruits of their labours will be available as an interactive wave atlas on
CD. Users can click on a particular area of the map to find information such as
the likely size of waves on the reef in almost any weather. The team believes
the CD will help engineers to design and place pontoons in safer places for
tourists.
The data should also be useful to marine biologists, according to Hardy.
鈥淎nimals won鈥檛 live, for instance, where they cannot feed or swim against
wave-induced water movements,鈥� he says.