Kim, I.C., Lee, J.L. and Lee, J.Y., 2011.

At Haeundae Beach in Busan, which is located in the south-east part of South Korea, rip currents have recently occurred many times, and more than 100 people were swept away by fast-moving seaward currents in 2012. The main objective of the present study is to provide preventative measures for the protection of human life in areas where rip currents occur. The Korean Meteorological Administration plans to set up monitoring systems to establish the forecasting of rip current generation for the sake of public safety at Haeundae beach. To provide a user-friendly simulation tool, a forecasting system has been built in the form of a software package called HAECUM. The coastal flows and waves are produced at each time step and grid point by means of the systematic interfacing of hydrodynamic and wave models in HAECUM. The outputs from the system are viewed as combined current vectors for the ease of decision-making by emergency management officials. Using Lee's approach for estimating the surface onshore currents due to wave breaking, we compared measured data from real rip currents in the summer season of 2012 with the results from the model calculated with incident wave conditions, and rip current forecasting model for Haeundae beach is verified.