Environmental and financial imperatives urgently require the effective application of oceanographic knowledge to address the many problems and opportunities in developing the coastal zone. This knowledge base must be synthesised within pre-operational numerical models, i.e. models simulating (within appropriate time and confidence limits) actual conditions on an hour-to-hour time scale. This requires a related observational/monitoring network constructed on an international basis.

Amongst the difficulties in progressing in this direction are: the need for an international (European) approach, the planning, experience and maintenance of the monitoring network, the establishment and training of personnel with the necessary organisation and scientific skills. While scientists traditionally are motivated by developing/understanding models, the above applications requires more focusing on rigorous evaluation of both existing models and the associated data used for: initialising, forcing and verification. However, ironically, addressing the organisational challenge of establishing real-time operational modelling is the most likely route to providing the expensive and extensive monitoring systems that are fundamental in development of the science.

While ultimately oceanographic models should encompass all aspects of dynamics, sedimentology, biology and chemistry, the present proposal represents an intermediate stage, applying the existing pre-operational models to simulate the transport of suspended sediment in the near-shore zone. This focus is chosen since: i. there is an urgent need for such models to predict coastal erosion and to link to biological/chemical models in which SPM can both transport nutrients/contaminants and may occlude photosynthetic growth, ii. recent rapid development in both in-situ and remote sensing techniques for measuring SPM present an exciting scientific challenge.

The starting point in the development of such models (linking storm, tidal, wave, turbulence, SPM components including their interactions) is the recognition of the need for comprehensive observational data sets - the significant development in shelf sea oceanography that resulted from data from the ZISCH and North Sea Project study highlights this point.

Thence the respective groups can first make independent simulations and use the inter-comparison of results to address questions such as:

• resolution/accuracy necessary in the forcing data
• spatial/temporal resolution
• incorporation of higher order/interaction processes
• adequacy of monitoring data
• methodology for exploiting remote sensing data
• need for new sensors

The aim is not for a simple statistically based model intercomparison but for identification of what meteorological information, modelling, monitoring, technology, development is needed in general and in specific locations to balance the advance towards pre-operational modelling rationalised on a European basis.