ABSTRACT

An analysis of sand ripples in shallow water, small fetch environments was made in a wave tank to investigate some aspects of the relationship between ripple geometry and movement and a variety of hydraulic parameters. Although stepwise regression and simple correlation procedures were employed, the effects of autocorrelation and multicollinearity casts some doubt upon these results. Power spectral analysis demonstrated that ripple height and wavelength increase with wave height and decrease with water depth, such that although random fluctuations are present, ripple geometry will tend to increase towards the breaker point. The effect of bed mounds which tend to cause ripples to increase in size on the waveward side and decrease on the leeward side was also noted. Ripple velocity was he least well explained of the ripple parameters investigated, although velocity was shown to be related to water depth and wave height.