The inverse water wave problem of bathymetry detection

The inverse water wave problem of bathymetry detection is the problem of deducing the bottom topography of the seabed from measurements of the water wave surface. In this paper, we present a fully nonlinear method to address this problem. The method starts from the Euler water wave equations for inviscid irrotational fluid flow, without any approximation. Given the water wave height and its first two time derivatives, we demonstrate that the bottom topography may be reconstructed from the numerical solution of a set of two coupled nonlocal equations. Due to the presence of growing hyperbolic functions in these equations, their numerical solution is increasingly difficult if the length scales involved are so that the water is sufficiently deep. This reflects the ill-posed nature of the inverse problem. A new method for the solution of the forward problem of determining the water wave surface at any time, given the bathymetry, is also presented.