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.
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.
Frequency of Publication
The journal follows a continuous publication. Papers are published 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.
Open Access, Licensing and Artificial Intelligence
Diamond Open Access
Our journal follows the Diamond Open Access model. All content is freely accessible to readers, and authors are not charged publication fees. The journal is supported through institutional resources and is committed to equitable and sustainable scholarly communication.
More information here.
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.
Licensing and Artificial Intelligence
Authors should be aware that publication under a CC BY 4.0 license may permit reuse of published content for text and data mining, machine learning, and artificial intelligence (AI) applications, subject to applicable law and license requirements.
CC BY 4.0 governs copyright permissions for published works. However, copyright licences do not, by themselves, address all ethical, governance, transparency, consent, attribution, reciprocity, or data sovereignty considerations associated with the use of scholarly content in AI systems.
TUDOP recognizes that questions concerning transparency, consent, attribution, reciprocity, and data sovereignty may extend beyond the scope of copyright licensing alone. Authors, readers, reviewers, editors, users, and technology providers are therefore expected to act in accordance with principles of responsible scholarship, research integrity, and respect for intellectual contributions.
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.
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.
How the review is conducted
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.
AI and Large Language Models in Peer Review
The journal recognizes that Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) may support scholarly workflows.
The use of such tools during peer review must not compromise confidentiality, reviewer accountability, editorial independence, research integrity, or the rights of the authors. AI systems cannot serve as reviewers, editors, or decision-makers.
Reviewers and editors remain fully responsible for all assessments, recommendations, decisions, and communications produced during the peer-review process.
Manuscripts, review reports, editorial correspondence, and other peer-review materials must not be submitted to external AI or LLM systems without explicit journal authorization.
Open access publication, preprint status, or participation in open review does not in itself constitute permission to submit peer-review materials to external AI systems.
For detailed requirements regarding the use of AI and LLMs during peer review, reviewers should consult the Reviewer Guidelines.
Research Data and Software
By publishing with TU Delft OPEN Publishing, authors must ensure that any research software and research data underlying their submitted and accepted manuscripts follow the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles.
TU Delft OPEN Publishing requirements:
- a data access statement,
- data and software sharing (unless restricted by legal, ethical, contractual, privacy, security, or intellectual property considerations)
- data and software citation, and
- data and software registration in a recognised repository in line with the TU Delft Research Data Framework Policy.
Authors should ensure that any use of AI tools in the generation, analysis, interpretation, documentation or management of research data and software is disclosed where appropriate and complies with applicable ethical, legal, and disciplinary standards.
Please visit this page for more information on policies.
Publication Ethics
TU Delft OPEN Publishing, as part of TU Delft, follows the TU Delft Code of Conduct and Integrity Policy. Authors, reviewers, editors, and other contributors are expected to follow those principles during the submission, review, publication and post-publication process.
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 and Editorial Screening
To support research integrity and publication ethics, submissions may be screened using similarity-detection and editorial assessment tools.
TU Delft OPEN Publishing may use AI-assisted editorial screening tools to support similarity checking and editorial quality assurance. Such tools assist, but do not replace, human editorial judgement.
Any findings generated by these tools are reviewed by editors and are not used as the sole basis for editorial decisions.
Use of AI
The use of AI technologies for writing and summarising is becoming increasingly popular. When used responsibly in research, i.e. where ideas, interpretations and conclusions are clearly human-generated, it can facilitate innovation.
However, authors and editors remain fully responsible and accountable for the quality and content of the manuscripts. In line with the COPE Position Statement of 13 February 2023, authors must not list AI tools as co-authors, as these tools cannot take responsibility for the submitted work. They must also be transparent about how the AI tool was used and which tool was used (e.g. ChatGPT and other generative language-based AI tools for image generation) in the writing of their manuscripts, and this information must be included in the materials and methods section of the manuscript.
In order to maintain integrity and transparency, and to preserve trust in the scholarly record, authors must disclose any use of generative AI technologies (e.g. ChatGPT, image generators, code assistants) that contributed to the manuscript. This disclosure should be included in the 'Use of AI' section and in the cover letter submitted before the review process. This policy is subject to review based on new developments, including the COPE Position Statement. Read more >>>
Authorship
All co-authors must agree to submit the work to the journal. The corresponding author shall primarily discuss the involvement of fellow authors. ALDJ 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
Conflict Of Interest
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 taking 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 Acknowledgement section of the publication
Knowledge Security
The journal supports responsible research and international collaboration. Authors, reviewers, and editors are expected to comply with applicable knowledge security requirements and to consider potential risks associated with the dissemination of sensitive knowledge, technology, or data.
For detailed information, please consult the TU Delft OPEN Publishing Knowledge Security Policy.
Complaints and Appeal
Complaints:
Complaints such as misconduct, authorship disputes, or suspected conflicts 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.
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) and by the author (corrigendum); the addition of 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.
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), 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
