Assessment of Rip Current Hazard on Caspian Sea Sandy Beach, North Iran

Abstract Rip currents are one of the most serious environmental concerns for beachgoers, and numerous studies have been performed to better understand the current dynamics besides assessing these threats. A broad range of rip currents have been observed on the southern beaches of the Caspian Sea, one of which is the rip current on the beach of Chunchenan village in Zibakenar tourist area. This coastline can be considered one of the most accident-prone coastal zones of Gilan province, whose coastal incidents seem to be associated with the rip currents formed there. To prove the relationship between rip currents and drowning in the study area, we divided the study into three phases: field operation, modeling and analysis of results, and statistical, social, and economic investigations. In the first phase, the bathymetric operation was performed using hand tools. In the second phase, a hydrographic map was obtained using the regional data of the wave and current model of the zone. We dealt in the third phase with the impacts and consequences of drowning by analyzing its statistics and examining its social and economic dimensions. The results demonstrated that waves often form rip currents with a height of less than 1 meter and an angle of about 45 degrees to the shoreline and they sometimes reach the speed of 0.6 meters per second. However, the dominant waves in the study area are north-east waves. According to the statistics of drownings in the three northern provinces of Iran, 174 people (143 males and 31 females) lost their lives in 2017, and 156 people (137 males and 19 females) died of drowning in 2018. The mortality rates per one million populations for the three provinces of Gilan, Mazandaran, and Golestan were 24.10, 29.84, and 8.03 in 2017, and 15.41, 33.19, and 4.28 in 2018, respectively. According to studies, two people die annually in the study area, which means that 2.81% of all fatal drownings on the 272.1-km beaches of Gilan province have occurred in a single small beach with an approximate length of 1 km. On the other hand, statistics indicate that the majority of maritime accident victims are young men, whose deaths not only result in social consequences such as depression and despair, but also in diminished social trust in government institutions and relevant organizations, increased feelings of insecurity, lost human resources for the country, and squandered expenditures on their growth and education. This makes it more difficult for the country to implement its programs and accomplish its objectives.