This monograph provides a comprehensive state-of-the-art description of the work carried out in the UK and Japan on " ". It therefore describes research which has been conducted, primarily over the last two decades, and which has yielded a fairly detailed picture of the important behaviours of compound channels and produced a number of engineering prediction methods which ought to be widely adopted in practice. The text will inevitably highlight areas where our knowledge is sparse and it will spur others on in the task of filling in such gaps. The concept of bi-national groups of researchers meeting together intermittently over period of some years, though not new, has drawn both inspiration and experience and the interaction has produced tangible outcomes in the form of this useful publication.