The mild-slope equation is familiar to coastal engineers as it can effectively describe wave propagation in nearshore regions. However, its computational method in Cartesian coordinates often renders the model inaccurate in areas with irregular shorelines, such as estuaries and harbors. Based on the hyperbolic mild-slope equation in Cartesian coordinates, the numerical model in orthogonal curvilinear coordinates is developed. The transformed model is discretized by the finite difference method and solved by the ADI method with space-staggered grids. The numerical predictions in curvilinear co- ordinates show good agreemenl with the data obtained in three typical physical expedments, which demonstrates that the present model can be used to simulate wave propagation, for normal incidence and oblique incidence, in domains with complicated topography and boundary conditions.
