International audience Two sets of experiments in a wave flume to demonstrate resonance phenomena in laboratory conditions have been performed. The first set was performed to investigate nonlinear wave run-up on the beach. It is revealed that under certain wave excitation frequencies, a significant increase in run-up amplification is observed Ezersky et al. (Nonlin Processes Geophys 20:35, 2013, [1]). It is found that this amplification is due to the excitation of resonant mode in the region between the shoreline and wave maker. The second set of experiments was performed to model an excitation of localized mode (edge waves) by breaking waves propagating towards shoreline. It is shown that the excitation of edge waves is due to parametric instability similar to pendulum with vibrating point of suspension. The domain of instability in the plane of parameters (amplitude—frequency) of surface wave is found. It was found that for amplitude of surface wave slightly exceeding the threshold, the amplitude of edge wave grows exponentially with time, whereas for the large amplitude, the wave breaking appears and excitation of edge wave does not occur. It was shown that parametric excitation of edge wave can increase significantly (up to two times) the maximal run-up height.