Estimacion de los valores de retorno de la altura de ola en la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina

Abstract

The wave height recorded at 8 stations along the oceanic coast of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, was analysed to estimate the 50-year return value of wave height at each station. The probability distributions of wave height for the measurements made at Mar de Ajo (1976/85), punta Medanos (northern and southern waveriders, 1981/84), Pinamar (1976/91), Mar del Plata (1968/69), Puerto Quequen (1975/76), Pehuen-Co (1986/88) and El Condor (1988) summer resort were tested with the theoretical distributions of Rayleigh, Weibull and Fisher-Tippett I. Excluding Mar de Ajo and El Condor, the best fit was obtained with the Fisher-Tippett probability density function. The method of Battjes for estimating the return values of wave height was applied and the resulting 50-year return values were 2.80; 6.90; 7.90; 7.20; 7.21; 8.20; 4.30 and 2.84 m for Mar de Ajo, punta Medanos (northern waverider), punta Medanos (southern waverider), Pinamar, Mar del Plata, Puerto Quequen, Pehuen-Co and El Condor, respectively. Lastly, the standard method of extreme values was used to analyse 10 and 16 annual wave height maxima from Mar de Ajo and Pinamar, respectively. The 50-year return values were found to be 2.30 m for Mar de Ajo and 7.20 m for Piramar.