First of all, I would like to say that I am honored and pleased with the fact that the ‘Full Paper’ of ‘The 3rd International Rip Current Symposium’ has been published as the special issue of Journal of Coastal Research, which is a prestigious publishing company world widely in the field of Coastal Research. Also, I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to our success, and also those who helped in submitting the ‘Full Paper’.
‘The 3rd International Rip Current Symposium’, which is best known with the images of huge rip currents as shown in the cover, was held in Haeundae beach in Korea. Here, along with the scholars and specialists who had great interest in life-saving and identifying the cause of rip currents occurrence, we had an opportunity to look around the sites where rip currents occurred frequently. It definitely was a great experience as we were able to get diversity of practical advices in forecasting, and rescuing technology.
Furthermore, I would like to thank ‘Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology’, ‘Korea Meteorological Administration’, ‘The Society of Coastal Zone Management’, and ‘Lifesaving Society Korea’ etc. through this preface, for helping me both physically and spiritually. I sincerely wish your institution a tremendous success in everything you do.
In this special issue, we have categorized our research into five topics as follows. Field Observation Study of Rip Currents, Rip Forecasting and Response, Beach Safety Management, Beach Disaster Management, and Coastal Environment of Haeundae Beach.
After numerous academic reviews by Prof. Stephen P. Leatherman, Prof. John Fletemeyer, Prof. Sung Bum Yoon, Prof. Won Chul Cho and Dr. Jooyong Lee, we were able to develop our paper into JCR level. I appreciate all those authors who have contributed and co-operated in this whole process.
Lastly, thanks to all those founding members of ‘The 3rd International Rip Current Symposium’ for their infinite interest and participation. I look forward to the ongoing success of this symposium series.
Thank you.
November 2014
Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea
Prof. Jung Lyul Lee
