A research team from the Coastal Research Group at the University of Bucharest, headed by Assist. Prof. Florin Tatui and supported by the Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding (UEFISCDI) in Romania, has been awarded a Young Research Team (TE) grant to provide a first view of rip currents presence, characteristics and behavior on the Romanian Black Sea beaches, together with the associated risk perception of beach users and involved stakeholders.

RORIP project aims to further the understanding of non-tidal rip current dynamics and circulation at international level and the implications of these surf zone currents for beach safety along the Romanian Black Sea beaches, focusing on local driving forces, rip typology and the linkage between wave conditions and beach morphology, on one hand, and rip speed and hazard, on the other. The research approach comprises three main elements, namely, beach monitoring (EO data, video images, UAV data, topographic and bathymetric surveys), field experiments (wave & current measurements) and numerical modelling (morphologic and hydrodynamic).

The outputs will be disseminated to coastal managers and lifeguard services in order to increase the public education and awareness of rip currents related hazards and to improve beach safety.  They will constitute the scientific foundation for developing future rip hazard/risk prediction tools, risk assessment platforms and early warning systems for the Romanian touristic beaches and a relevant framework to understand and further predict the other coastal hazards and ecosystem modifications related to rip current activity.

Funding