2022: JCHS going strong

The diamond open access Journal of Coastal and Hydraulic Structures now exists a full two years. With 11 papers published in 2022, the journal is steadily growing.

The journal focuses on man-made structures and other interventions in water. Like the beautiful 90 year old Afsluitdijk that was renovated in 2022, see picture. We focus on the hydraulic issues, but recognize that a good design of a structure is multi-disciplinary, including structural and geotechnical issues, and many functions to fulfil. The 2022 papers covered many interesting topics. Various types of structures were considered: curtain wall and floating breakwaters, flood gates, waterway bank protection, and dikes. Various types of flows were considered: jet flows, tsunamis, primary ship waves, overtopping flows, and irregular standing waves. Hereby various societal challenges were addressed: nature (fish) friendly structures, climate change adaptation, renewable energy, flood safety, and increased navigation.

So check out the 2022 volume of the journal, which is complete now!

As a new feature, the submission of papers for special issues was opened this year. The first two special issues deal with similar topics in the inland and coastal fields: large wood in rivers and coastal debris. The many papers that are under review for these special issues are planned to be published in 2023. Also conferences (RIM 2022 in Caen, and Coastlab 2024 in Delft) were selected of which selected papers after an additional review process can be published in special issues.

We are pleased that the first formal recognition of the journal is starting to appear. JCHS was designated as a level 1 scientific journal in the Norwegian register for scientific journals. Moreover, many references to our papers are popping up in Google Scholar. It will take a track record of several year to be included in most of the other registers, and our publisher TU Delft Open is working hard on this. When JCHS is added to a certain register, all papers and their citations will be included retroactively.

In a questions-and-answers session at the International Conference of Coastal Engineering this year (ICCE 2022), various journals in the field were discussed. JCHS was the only of these journals with a double blind review processes, and publication of the (anonymous) reviews. Another complementary addition to existing journals in the broader field.

JCHS is diamond open access. This means that there are no charges for authors or readers. This is made possible by the support of the Bundesanstalt für Wasserbau (BAW), Rijkswaterstaat, and TU Delft. The largest contribution was of course made by the in-kind support of all our reviewers, editors, and associate editors. We would wish to thank all these people and institutions for making this possible.

We wish all our (future) readers a prosperous 2023!

On behalf of the editorial team of JCHS, Bas Hofland (chief editor)

Editorial board:
Alessandro Antonini, Hans Bihs, Jeremy Bricker, Daniel Bung, Brian Crookston, Sebastien Erpicum, Miguel Esteban, Nils Goseberg, Bas Hofland, Rebekka Kopmann, Eva Loukogeorgaki, Thao Nguyen, Anton Schleiss, Carsten Thorenz