No / It is important to consider the potential instability of the seabed due to the accumulation of wave-induced pore pressure in the design of a composite breakwater as the pore pressure within the seabed can considerably build-up under waves loading and eventually leads to a sharp decrease of the effective stress. Due to the importance in practical engineering, many theoretical models have been developed to evaluate the magnitude and distribution of the residual pore pressure. However, most of these studies treat the soil skeleton as an invariant medium, which ignores the damping of the soil strength due to the reduction of the effective stress. In this study, a two-dimensional poro-elastoplastic model, in which the influence of the reduction of the effective stress on the soil strength has been considered, is proposed to investigate the accumulation of pore water pressure around a composite breakwater and its effect on the soil characteristics. The simulation results show that the liquefaction is likely to occur around the toe of the breakwater due to the accumulation of pore water pressure there. The liquefaction leads to the decrease of soil resistance, which has great effect on the development of the residual pore pressure. Analysis shows that the development of residual pore pressure is also greatly affected by both the wave height and soil permeability. The simulation demonstrates that if the decrease of soil resistance is not considered, the soil liquefaction depth will be overestimated. / National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51479053), the 111 Project (Grant No. B12032), the marine renewable energy research project of State Oceanic Administration (GHME2015GC01), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu province (Grant No. BK20150804), Colleges and Universities in Jiangsu Province Plans for Graduate Research and Innovation Projects (Grant No. B1504708) and the Distinguished Visiting Fellowship from the Royal Academy of Engineering