About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The Journal of Coastal and Hydraulic Structures (JCHS) is a completely free and diamond-open-access, community-based journal. All papers are rigorously peer-reviewed in a double-anonymous fashion. Its mission is to publish high-level engineering science results focused on the field of coastal and hydraulic structures. The first volume of JCHS was published in 2021.

JCHS publishes fundamental research studies, case studies of projects, discussions and review articles. The scope of content ranges from the fluid mechanics, fluid-structure interaction and hydraulics of loads, to risk analysis of hazards and consequences, inspections and maintenance, damage and failure countermeasures, laboratory and numerical methods, nature-based solutions, and related topics pertaining to structures at ports, coasts, waterways and lakes. Interdisciplinary topics treating hydraulics combined with structural design and analysis, geotechnical issues, and local sediment transport (scour) are also welcomed. Case studies and post-disaster field surveys whose findings add value to the understanding and optimization of hydraulic and coastal structures are equally considered. Manuscript submissions are welcome from academia, industry, government, and all others whose work is related to the scope.

Frequency of Publication

The journal uses continuous publication. Papers are published immediately after acceptance in one journal volume per year and archived in this manner. All papers are assigned a unique incremental number depending on the order of publication.

Thematic Series

Papers that are part of a Thematic Series are identified as such on the paper, but follow the normal continuous publication routine mentioned above. See under About/Submissions for more information.

Guest Editors

JCHS requires an agreement between the Guest Editor and the Editor-in-Chief where the Guest Editor’s role is clearly defined. Guest Editors are subject to the same rules as Editors and adhere to TU Delft OPEN Publishing policies.

Guest Editors can be appointed by the Editorial Board. They have the same role as Editors for the papers that are submitted to the Thematic Series that they lead. They are aided by a more experienced Editor from the Editorial Board who will ensure the quality and uniformity of the publishing process.

Article Processing Charges

Publishing in JCHS is entirely free, so neither Submission Charges nor Article Processing Charges are required from the authors. The resources needed to run the journal are covered by the institutions where the (associate) editors are employed, mainly in the form of time invested.

Open Access Policy

JCHS is an Open Access journal licensed under a CC-BY 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) licence. This means that all content is available without paywalls. Anyone is free to share (copy, distribute, and transmit the work) to remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions:

  • The original authors must be given credit.
  • For any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are
  • Any of these conditions can be waived if the copyright holders give permission.
  • Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.

Copyright Policy

  • Authors retain their copyrights.
  • if you use published images, text or other materials, please be aware of copyright regulations. The TU Delft Copyright helpdesk can provide further information and answer your copyright questions.
  • In case of (alleged or proven) copyright breaches or scientific misconduct (e.g. fabrication of data), JCHS will follow the guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Review policy

The journal is committed to a transparent review process that adheres to the COPE policy. Editors and reviewers are encouraged to join COPE individually and have agreed to declare any conflicts of interest.

JCHS follows a double-anonymous peer review process. Herein, the reviewer's and author's identities are not visible to each other (double anonymous). The peer-review process is managed by independent and external experts selected based on their expertise in the field. The reviewers interact exclusively with/via the assigned Editor. Anonymous reviewer reports and author/editor communication are published with the publication for transparency. (Learn more about peer review terminologies).

The journal publishes Discussions as post-publication comments on previously published JCHS articles. The content and procedure for Discussion papers are described under the pull-down menu about/submissions.

The Editor-in-Chief divides the submitted manuscripts among the editors and can also assign a manuscript to him-/herself. The assigned Editor can decline a manuscript before sending it out for review when it is out of scope or apparent insufficient qualify (e.g., a clear lack of sufficient English language level). The assigned Editor makes the final decision on acceptance of a manuscript.

Selected review results and decisions are discussed confidentially within the Editorial Board in editorial meetings to achieve and maintain a common quality baseline.

Because the community-based JCHS has a large Editorial Board, the Editors, Editor-in-Chief (EIC) or Vice Editor-in-Chief (Vice EIC) themselves may also be involved in publications in the journal, but the same rigorous (double anonymous) review workflow is enforced to ensure the integrity and quality of the review process. If an editor, EIC, or vice EIC is listed as a (co)author, this editor, EIC, or vice EIC will not be involved in the review process at all and cannot obtain the reviewers' identities. If the EIC or Vice EIC is (co)author, then also the selection of the Editor handling the paper will be done by respectively the Vice EIC or EIC.

All papers have to be submitted from the start in the final formatting in order to facilitate the review process and to enable the reviewers to comment on formatting. The standard review time for a single review round is 3 to 4 weeks in order to achieve a balance between high quality, thorough reviews and sufficiently rapid publication. Reviews are performed by external and independent reviewers who are experienced in the field, and the reviews will be based on a well-defined list of quality aspects (see our submission section). At least two external and independent reviews are required to accept a paper. The decision on a (re)submitted version of a paper can be one of the following: "accept", "resubmit with minor revisions" (no review required), "major revisions" (new round of review required), or "reject". After acceptance of a revised manuscript, it will be published. The anonymous review reports will be published together with the published paper.

After the content of a paper is approved by the assigned Editor (based on the review reports), the final formatting (typesetting) will have to be made by the author(s), and to be approved by the assigned Editor before the manuscript can be published. Authors can appeal to decisions, see under Publication Ethics.

Research Data

TU Delft OPEN Publishing strongly supports that the data underlying the journals are archived in a recognised research data repository in line with the TU Delft Research Data Framework Policy and will support data citation. Please visit this page for more information on policies.

Research Software

TU Delft OPEN Publishing strongly encourages the adoption of the TU Delft Research Software Policy. This policy facilitates best practices on management and sharing of research software and facilitates proper recognition of the contribution of TU Delft researchers to software.

Publication Ethics

Editors, authors, and the publisher adopt the guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (guidelines COPE) and the fair data principles. The journal adheres to the COPE Core Practices and the principles of transparency described in the Declaration on transparent editorial policies for academic journals.

  • Integrity policy

    TU Delft OPEN Publishing follows the Integrity Policy of TU Delft which sees to ethics and integrity. According to the TU Delft Integrity Statement in the TU Delft Code of Conduct all people involved in research, teaching and innovation at TU Delft, must maintain the highest standards of academic integrity. This means that all must act upon the leading principles and the standards of the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. Non-compliance with these standards (may) lead to measures and sanctions. The TU Delft Committee on Research Integrity (CWI) assesses complaints on alleged violations of these research integrity standards and advises the Executive Board (CvB) in this respect: a provisional opinion by the CvB on alleged research misconduct may eventually lead to a publication retraction, a ban from TU Delft OPEN Publishing and a report to affiliated institutions. For queries: integrity@tudelft.nl When submitting your work to TU Delft OPEN Publishing it must meet the following requirements in case it sees to human research objects, medical care or device, or animals. According to the TU Delft Regulations on Human Trials (2016), approval for human research is mandatory for all research involving data obtained from human research objects, and is provided by the Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC). If you conduct an experiment which involves medical care or device, you must seek approval form a certified medical ethics committee. For queries: hrec@tudelft.nl For experiments involving animals, please contact: ivd@tudelft.nl

  • Similarity check

    A similarity check is part of the TU Delft OPEN Publishing standard publication procedure. Authors submitting their article to the JCHS should expect their work to go through a similarity analysis at any workflow stage. All articles submitted are checked with iThenticate software. The editor and publisher carefully analyse the reports. In case of suspected plagiarism, the authors will have two weeks to explain. The journal also checks for AI-generated

  • Use of AI

    The use of AI technologies in writing/summarising is gaining popularity and is expanding. When used responsibly and appropriately in research, it can facilitate innovation. However, authors/editors remain fully responsible and accountable for the quality and content of their manuscripts. With this in mind and with reference to the COPE Position Statement of 13 February 2023, authors are required not to list AI tools as co-author because these tools cannot take responsibility for the submitted work, and they need to be transparent in disclosing in the materials and methods of the manuscript how the AI tool was used and which tool was used (such as ChatGPT and other generative (language-based) AI tools for generation of images, etc.) in the writing of their manuscripts. If applicable, disclosure needs to take place at the bottom of the References section, in the Acknowledgements section, and separately in the cover letter submitted before the review process. This policy is subject to review based on new developments to include the COPE Position Statement.

  • Complaints and Appeals

    Complaints
    Complaints such as misconduct, authorship dispute or suspected conflict of interest can be addressed to the publisher (publishing-lib@tudelft.nl) or the editorial board.

    Author Appeal
    Appeals to an editorial decision can be brought by a corresponding author to the editorial board by contacting the (vice) editor-in-chief of the journal. The editorial board will decide on the appeal by majority vote (without the editor who made the decision). Their appeal decisions are final.

  • Conflict of Interest

    • Disclosure: Anyone (editors, reviewers, authors and any other relevant parties) involved in the publishing process should disclose any potential conflicts of interest they may have
    • Evaluation: After disclosing the potential COI, it will be examined by the editorial board to determine how important it is and its possible impact on the publication process.
    • Management: An identified COI requires appropriate steps. Those steps may include stepping back from certain duties or decisions, removal from the publication process, or take other actions to reduce the conflict.
    • Transparency: Any identified conflicts of interest should be transparently disclosed to relevant parties, including readers, authors, and reviewers.
    • COI can be mentioned after the section Acknowledgment of the publication

  • Publication Notice and Changes

    Any changes made to the published content will be accompanied by a post-publication notice, which will be permanently linked to the original content. Publication notices include errors introduced by the journal (erratum), an author error (corrigendum), adding a (small) document to a published work to provide additional information (addendum), and retraction.

    Preferably, the Editor who handled the paper handles publication notices through the following steps (if that editor is not available, another editor or the publisher can also be appointed):

    • Reviewing the proposed changes to the published content to determine if they are necessary and appropriate.
    • Preparing a post-publication notice that accurately reflects the changes made to the content.
    • Linking the post-publication notice to the original content in a clear and prominent manner.
    • Distributing the updated content and the post-publication notice to relevant parties, including subscribers, indexers, and other databases.
    • Monitoring the impact of the changes on the academic record and making any necessary further updates or corrections.

  • Authorship

    All co-authors must agree to submit the work to the journal. The corresponding author shall primarily discuss the involvement of fellow authors. JCHS communicates with all authors to check their agreement to be involved. The contributions of the various contributing authors are given in a final section of the paper following the CRediT system. See the site of TU Delft OPEN Publishing for details.
    All co-authors must agree to submit the work to the journal. For authors’ disputes, see the “Complaints and Appeals” section.

    How to add extra authors before publication:
    • All co-authors must agree to add new (co)authors to the publication
    • Agreement must be collected and sent to the editor with an explanation

Code of conduct

JCHS and TU Delft OPEN Publishing adhere to the TU Delft code of conduct and integrity policy.

Metadata

JCHS grants you the right to publish the metadata of the series, its issues and articles under the terms of the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0).

Indexing

JCHS with ISSN 2667-047X is indexed by the Norwegian register for scientific journals (level 1), HENRY (Hydraulic Engineering Repository), Directory of Open Access scholarly Resources (ROAD), Sherpa Romeo, The Keepers, Google Scholar, WorldCat and ERIH Plus.

Archiving

This journal utilises the LOCKSS system to create a distributed archiving system among participating libraries. It permits those libraries to create permanent archives of the journal for purposes of preservation and restoration

Authors can deposit a Submitted version, an Accepted version (Author Accepted Manuscript) and a Published version (Version of record) of their work in an institutional or any other repository they choose.

TU Delft OPEN Publishing is committed to the permanent availability and preservation of scholarly research. We work in partnership with organisations and maintain our digital archive.

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in our published content are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of TU Delft OPEN Publishing.

The content provided is exclusively the responsibility of the author(s) concerned. TU Delft OPEN Publishing, JCHS, the editors and reviewers are not responsible for errors in the contents or any consequences arising from the use of the information.

The opinions expressed in the publications of JCHS do not necessarily represent the views of TU Delft OPEN Publishing and the editors.

We follow an Open Access publishing principle, in which the author(s) are the sole owners of the copyright of the content published. The author(s) of the concerned article are responsible for any omissions or copyright violations. Our responsibility is to remove the concerned article from the journal once the query is raised.

Sponsoring

The resources needed to run the journal are covered by the institutions where the (associate) editors are employed, mostly in the form of time invested. These institutions are mentioned on the Editorial Team page. Extra contributions are given by TU Delft (the journal management platform and publishing advice), the German Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute BAW (formatting verification and secretarial support), and Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch Department of Waterways and Public Works (contribution to formatting support). We also received support from the Open Access Innovation Fund of the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam. We gratefully acknowledge these contributions.

 

ISSN
2667-047X online

Publisher

TU Delft OPEN Publishing