Laboratory Observations and Numerical Simulations of Wave Height Attenuation in Heterogeneous Vegetation

Blackmar, Philip; Cox, Daniel T.; Wu, Wei‐Cheng

doi:10.1061/(asce)ww.1943-5460.0000215

Cited by 52 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Aboveground plant structures alter hydrodynamic forces, although this finding has been limited to sea‐grasses and wetland plants that are fully or partially submerged, and to flat surfaces with fine, cohesive sediment (eg Blackmar et al . 2014).…”

Section: Plants As Structures That Alter Hydrodynamics During a Stormmentioning

confidence: 99%

Going with the flow or against the grain? The promise of vegetation for protecting beaches, dunes, and barrier islands from erosion

Feagin

Figlus

Zinnert

et al. 2015

Frontiers in Ecol & Environ

198

115

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Coastlines have traditionally been engineered to maintain structural stability and to protect property from storm‐related damage, but their ability to endure will be challenged over the next century. The use of vegetation to reduce erosion on ocean‐facing mainland and barrier island shorelines – including the sand dunes and beaches on these islands – could be part of a more flexible strategy. Although there is growing enthusiasm for using vegetation for this purpose, empirical data supporting this approach are lacking. Here, we identify the potential roles of vegetation in coastal protection, including the capture of sediment, ecological succession, and the building of islands, dunes, and beaches; the development of wave‐resistant soils by increasing effective grain size and sedimentary cohesion; the ability of aboveground architecture to attenuate waves and impede through‐flow; the capability of roots to bind sediments subjected to wave action; and the alteration of coastline resiliency by plant structures and genetic traits. We conclude that ecological and engineering practices must be combined in order to develop a sustainable, realistic, and integrated coastal protection strategy.

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Section: Plants As Structures That Alter Hydrodynamics During a Stormmentioning

confidence: 99%

Going with the flow or against the grain? The promise of vegetation for protecting beaches, dunes, and barrier islands from erosion

Feagin

Figlus

Zinnert

et al. 2015

Frontiers in Ecol & Environ

198

115

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Although flows through vegetation have been studied extensively both in open channels and adjacent wetlands (e.g., Folkard 2011;Montakhab et al 2012;Nepf 2012a, b), a majority of studies were focused on unidirectional flows through freshwater vegetation. Even though, recently, more attention has been paid to oscillatory flows in coastal vegetated areas, where both waves and currents coexist (e.g., Luhar et al 2010;Callaghan et al 2010;Manca et al 2012), most of the existing studies focused on wave energy dissipation caused by vegetation (e.g., Paul and Amos 2011;Chen and Zhao 2012;Ozeren et al 2013;Anderson and Smith 2014;Blackmar et al 2014;Möller et al 2014). By contrast, there are few studies on the wave-induced currents on the surface of coastal wetlands, especially under storm and field conditions (e.g., Lacy and Hoover 2011;Truong et al 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Field Study of How Wind Waves and Currents May Contribute to the Deterioration of Saltmarsh Fringe

Karimpour

Chen

Twilley

2015

Estuaries and Coasts

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Deltaic landscapes, such as the Mississippi River Delta, are sites of extensive conversion of wetlands to open water, where increased fetch may contribute to erosion of marsh edges, increasing wetland loss. A field experiment conducted during a storm passage tested this process through the observations of wave orbital and current velocities in the fringe zone of a deteriorating saltmarsh in Terrebonne Bay, Louisiana. Incident waves seaward of the marsh edge and wave orbital and current velocities immediate landward of the marsh edge were measured. Through a dimensional analysis, it shows that the current and orbital velocities in the marsh fringe were controlled by the incident waves, inundation depth, submergence ratio, and vegetation density. Similarly, it is shown that the longshore currents in the inundated saltmarsh fringe depended on the local wave-induced momentum flux, vegetation submergence, and vegetation density in the fringe zone. The cross-shore current showed the presence of a return flow in the lower region of the velocity profile. A high correlation between the current direction and the local flow-wave energy ratio as well as the vegetation submergence and density is found, indicating the important role of surface waves in the fringe flow landward of an inundated wetland under storm conditions. The field observations shed light on the potential ecological consequences of increased wave activities in coastal saltmarsh wetlands owing to subsidence, sea level rise, limited sediment supply, increases in wind fetch, and storm intensity.

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“…Flume studies have shown that differences in vegetation structure, density, and flexibility affect the measured amount of wave attenuation (Bouma et al, 2010;Paul et al, 2012;Blackmar et al, 2014). While modeled wave attenuation is most simply described by stem density, height, and diameter (Dalrymple et al, 1984;Kobayashi et al, 1993), more robust models include stem flexibility (Asano, 2006;Mullarney and Henderson, 2010) and variations in the structure of the vegetation (Dubi and Torum, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Accuracy of optical image analysis compared to conventional vegetation measurements for estimating morphological features of emergent vegetation

Lemein

Cox

Albert

et al. 2015

Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science

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Laboratory Observations and Numerical Simulations of Wave Height Attenuation in Heterogeneous Vegetation

Cited by 52 publications

References 21 publications

Going with the flow or against the grain? The promise of vegetation for protecting beaches, dunes, and barrier islands from erosion

Going with the flow or against the grain? The promise of vegetation for protecting beaches, dunes, and barrier islands from erosion

A Field Study of How Wind Waves and Currents May Contribute to the Deterioration of Saltmarsh Fringe

Accuracy of optical image analysis compared to conventional vegetation measurements for estimating morphological features of emergent vegetation

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