Frédéric Bouchette, Associate professor
Frédéric Bouchette -- PhD, Professor

Beach & Littoral hydro-morphodynamics

Professor at the University of Montpellier, FRANCE
Lab. Geosciences Montpellier and Beach Institute GLADYS

”On ne s'élève pas en marchant sur la tête des autres”

Fred Bouchette is a scientist specialized in the development of concepts and methods in relation with the dynamics of shallow water environments. He studies the domain that extends from a few tens of meters of water depth at sea to the coastal watershed onshore, with a particular emphasis on the littoral area and the shoreline itself. He used to work in Spain, Taiwan, Canada, Norway, Chad, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, USA, Tunisia, in the french Alps, in the Gulf of Lions (Mediterranean Sea) and overseas in French Polynesia and New Caledonia. He builds his research combining various points of view from applied mathematics to quantitative geomorphology, including physics, geophysics, civil engineering, and he enjoys making some connections with coastal archeology, littoral hazards or the quantification of littoral resources (such as sand stock, fresh water or Renewable Marine Energies). He is in charge of the Research Network GLADYS fully devoted to nearshore hydro-morphodynamics in the South of France and overseas.

From a strict academic point of view, his activity focuses on: 1) the development of a non-linear diffusion formalism for beach morphodynamics, 2) the development of an alternative theory for beach morphodynamics by a minimization principle 3) the understanding of complex wave/current/water-level interactions in coral reef systems, and 4) several developments in relation with air-wave-seabottom complex couplings in the nearshore including wind-drive wave growth in finite depth in presence of vorticity.