The word "波澜" is formed by combining two semantic-phonetic characters: "波" denotes "wave" through its water radical (氵) and phonetic component "皮", while "澜" denotes "billows" through its water radical (氵) and phonetic component "阑"; together, they create a compound where the shared water radical reinforces the meaning related to waves, and each character's phonetic element indicates its pronunciation.