In order to predict the near-bottom kinematics under shoaling and breaking waves, five possible numerical modeling strategies are reviewed and applied to two test-cases performed under regular waves in a wave flume. These tests correspond to spilling and plunging breakers over a plane and smooth slope of 1:20. By comparing the numerical predictions with LDA velocity measurements close to the bottom, it is found that the Modified Transfer Function Method gives good estimations for the horizontal velocity, but it must be emphasized that this approach requires the knowledge of the free-surface signal on input. If only offshore wave conditions are known, best results are obtained from Nonlinear Deterministic Models, in particular from the extended Boussinesq equations. In the breaking zone, however, the agreement with measurement is better for the spilling breaker case; the treatment of plunging breaker needs to be improved in the numerical model.
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