Bivariate Analysis of Extreme Wave and Storm Surge Events. Determining the Failure Area of Structures

In the present paper a bivariate process of extreme waves and storm surges at a Dutch station on the North Sea is considered. A bivariate logistic model and a sequential estimation procedure are used to extract joint exceedance probabilities of the two variables. The parameters of the margins of the bivariate distribution are defined by three different methods of estimation: a) the Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) approach, b) a Bayesian procedure with flat prior distributions and c) the L-Moments (LM) estimation procedure. Comparison of the results of the three methods is performed and general conclusions are extracted. An approach to estimate the failure area of a particular structure under extreme sea conditions is presented, using the margins resulting from the three different estimation methods.