This Forum provides a platform for knowledge exchange (information, education, networking), enabling the MASTS community to collaborate on Hydrodynamic Modelling Research. As models are used to simulate numerous oceanic activities, their broad range of applications require the expertise of a wide variety of disciplines.
MASTS Research Forums and Working Groups form the major scientific driving force of the MASTS community. Working Groups (WG) provide opportunities for more focused Forum and cross-Forum activities, addressing specific time-bound challenges related to established or emerging areas of marine research, policy initiatives or regulation.
The Forum has identified the need for an accessible, up-to-date overview of modelling of Scottish Coastal Waters. Even practitioners in the area can find it difficult to keep track of the broadening applications and new technological approaches. This Working Group aims to create a Story Map to establish an accessible resource.
In 2023 and 2025 the Forum organised 2 successful in-person Software Carpentry Workshops at the University of St Andrews. Software Carpentry aims to help researchers get their work done in less time and with less pain by teaching them basic research computing skills.
The free courses were organised and conducted by the Forum and covered basic and intermediate concepts and tools of Linux, Python, Git and Unix Shell, including program building and design, version control, data management, task automation and Intermediate Research Software Development. Participants were encouraged to help one another and to apply what they learned to their own research problems.
2025 Instructors & Helpers: Olexandr Konovalov, James Morrison, Rory O’Hara Murray
2023 Instructors & Helpers: Patrick McCann, Anastasia Ellis, Philip Gillibrand, James Morrison, Rory O’Hara Murray, Simon Waldman
MASTS Open Forum Sessions aim at connecting the MASTS community with its diverse Research Forums and Steering Groups. At these online sessions, Forums “open their doors” to present their members’ work, network with the community and exchange ideas on Forum objectives and activities.
A recording of this session is available on the MASTS YouTube Channel!
Speaker: Dr Rory O’Hara Murray (Forum Convenor; Scottish Government)
Offshore wind farms are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in our shelf seas. The recent ScotWind leasing round has set the scene for development in deeper North Sea waters. These deeper (>60 m) shelf seas are less dynamic than the shallower nearshore environment and undergo seasonal stratification, which in turn triggers the development of fronts, the spring plankton bloom, and enhances primary productivity across the shelf seas. Offshore wind farms structures could enhance vertical mixing though turbulence production, which has the potential to change shelf sea stratification. This brief introduction will set the scene for the open forum session exploring anthropogenic energy in the marine environment.
(June 2025)
Speaker: Dr Momchil Terziev (Steering Group member; University of Strathclyde)
Ships interact with the marine environment in a variety of ways including physical and chemical pollution. While chemical pollution is understood and increasingly regulated, the physical effects of the injected energy resulting from ship operation is not understood well. Energy pollution by ships includes the production of waves and injection of turbulence which may persist for regionally relevant timescales. This turbulence has been shown to mix layers of the ocean, affecting the natural pycnocline alongside inducing mortality in micro and macro organisms. This talk will summarise existing evidence and research of energy pollution by ships and discuss current approaches to modelling the phenomenon and related challenges.
(June 2025)
Speaker: Dr David Woolf (Steering Group member; Heriot-Watt University)
The most efficient means of harnessing power from a current in a channel (e.g. tidal stream) is by a “tidal fence” across the entire width of the channel. However, that is almost always impractical and therefore various array designs that leave “gaps” are proposed. Currents tend to avoid the turbines and pass through the gaps reducing efficiency. Array efficiency can be improved by obstructing flow through the gaps. To maintain navigation and migration, obstruction by roughening the seabed is the most likely option; this leads to “FLAIR” as a concept. The physical concept is quite simple, the practical and social parts are far more difficult! Roughening can be in the form of large solid objects or debris such as concrete or scrap metal, or can be through deliberate cultivation of seabed flora such as kelp. In either case, the approach may be antagonistic to conservation legislation, though in one sense this is perverse since without FLAIR the flow in the gaps (and therefore, “the environment”) will be altered by the array. Suggestions are welcome.
Speaker: Dr Philip Gillibrand, Oceanographer and Hydrodynamic Modeller at the Mowi Scotland Ltd Environment Team
Particle tracking models (PTMs) are powerful tools for simulating the transport and dispersion of material in the ocean. By assigning appropriate properties and characteristics to the particles, models can simulate, for example, the dispersion of dissolved chemicals, dispersal of living organisms, settling of particulate wastes and the beaching of floating plastics. Applications include oil spill response, search and rescue, academic research and coastal zone management. This presentation demonstrates the ease with which these different processes can be simulated in a PTM.
(August 2024)
Speaker: Soizic Garnier, Research Officer at the School of Ocean Sciences, Bangor University
Particle tracking models are extensively used tools for simulating the transport and dispersion of a large range of particulate material in the marine environment. With their increasing use, more user-friendly particle tracking codes have been developed and shared within the scientific community. This presentation will introduce one of them, OceanParcels and demonstrate how to set up and run a simple simulation.
(August 2024)
The Forum is funding 2 applicants to attend the 8th Norway-Scotland Waves & Marine Hydrodynamics Symposium, held at the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) between 22nd -23rd October 2025:
The MASTS ASM is a cross-disciplinary event that brings together the marine science community, with the aim of promoting and communicating research excellence and forging new collaborations. The event includes expert plenary speakers, general science and panel sessions, and e-posters.
Please see here for an overview of previous ASMs and programmes.
The Forum created an e-Poster for this conference which is available here.
North Sea human-made, offshore structures (e.g. oil/gas platforms, offshore wind farms) provide a hard substrate habitat for benthic marine species which can spread between sites during their larval stage. Here, we aim to address how the installation of additional human-made structures, like new wind farms, or decommissioning of existing ones, like oil and gas platforms at the end of service, contribute to changes in larval connectivity. We use particle tracking model simulations to assess the ecological connectivity of benthic species in the northern North Sea during two contrasting years to highlight seasonal to annual variability. Read more here
Barton, B.I., De Dominicis, M., Woolf, D.K. et al. The impacts of human-made structures on larval connectivity in the northern North Sea. Commun Earth Environ 6, 377 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02346-6
Datasets:
The latest climate change evidence update on storms and waves has now been published by MCCIP.
This update, led by Dr Lucy Bricheno, from the National Oceanography Centre in Liverpool, indicates that more very severe winter storms will cross over the UK and Ireland in the future.
The newest climate models are generally able to consistently predict storm tracks, showing an increase in large and intense wintertime storms and a greater likelihood of successive storms and compound events. High-impact and low-likelihood events, such as the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), could strengthen the storm track and winter westerly winds over the North Atlantic. The models also show that even a gradual weakening of the AMOC could lead to stronger storms and larger storm surges. However, it is important to note that there is still considerable uncertainty regarding future changes to North Atlantic storms, much of which are driven by natural variability rather than long-term climate change.
The key ‘takehome messages’ are summarised on the MCCIP storms and waves evidence review page, which also contains a link to the updated review paper.
The Marine Science Coordination Committee (MSCC) and MASTS are working with ecosystem modellers across the UK to increase the impact of ecosystem models on policy development and management. Learn more about MASTS members and their work with MSCC here.
Established within the Dynamics and Properties of Marine Systems Research Theme, the MASTS Numerical and Experimental Hydrodynamic Modelling (NEHM) Forum exists to promote numerical and experimental hydrodynamic modelling within Scotland, and to provide a platform for bringing together the scientific community to address current and future research needs.
Both numerical and physical models are used to simulate estuarine, coastal and ocean-scale flows, and as such have a broad range of applications, from environmental assessment, to marine energy, to climatology. MASTS members have research expertise in these areas, which can be seen below.
Physical Oceanographer | Co-chair of the National Partnership for Ocean Prediction (NPOP) Coastal Modelling and Applications Activity Group | Chair of ScotMER physical processes receptor group science and research
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Research Officer at the School of Ocean Sciences
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Reader
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Associate Professor (Reader in Marine Physics)
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Senior Lecturer
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Principal Investigator in Physical Oceanography
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Research Associate | Department of Mathematics and Statistics
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Senior Specialist Scientist (Oceanographer)
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PI Physical Oceanography
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Lecturer in Naval Architecture
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Senior Lecturer | Marine Engineer & Naval Architect
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Environmental Modeller
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We’re working behind the scenes to bring you a suite of useful, and updateable, resources including:
If you would like to be updated when the resources section is live please let us know.
