Abstract
Ishigaki Island is located at the southern-most end of the Ryukyu Islands of Japan, and is encompassed by well-developed fringing reefs. In this study, we conducted field survey in east coast of Ishigaki Island to investigate the characteristics of currents in the reef area. At the same time we conducted numerical computation of currents by an improved shallow water turbulence model (SDS-Q3D) with high accuracy bathymetry of the reef area estimated from remote sensing data analysis. Numerical computation shows good agreement with field survey results and demonstrates importance of morphology effects on the characteristics of the currents in the reef area.
