  A high-resolution nested WAM/SWAN wave model suite aimed at rapidly
establishing nearshore wave forecasts as well as a climatology and return
values of the local wave conditions with Rapid Enviromental Assessment (REA) in
mind is described. The system is targeted at regions where local wave growth
and partial exposure to complex open-ocean wave conditions makes diagnostic
wave modelling difficult.
  SWAN is set up on 500 m resolution and is nested in a 10 km version of WAM. A
model integration of more than one year is carried out to map the spatial
distribution of the wave field. The model correlates well with wave buoy
observations (0.96) but overestimates the wave height somewhat (18%, bias 0.29
m).
  To estimate wave height return values a much longer time series is required
and running SWAN for such a period is unrealistic in a REA setting. Instead we
establish a direction-dependent transfer function between an already existing
coarse open-ocean hindcast dataset and the high-resolution nested SWAN model.
Return values are estimated using ensemble estimates of two different
extreme-value distributions based on the full 52 years of statistically
downscaled hindcast data. We find good agreement between downscaled wave height
and wave buoy observations. The cost of generating the statistically downscaled
hindcast time series is negligible and can be redone for arbitrary locations
within the SWAN domain, although the sectors must be carefully chosen for each
new location.
  The method is found to be well suited to rapidly providing detailed wave
forecasts as well as hindcasts and return values estimates of partly sheltered
coastal regions.
