Aquatic vegetation abounds in rivers, lakes, and coastal regions. It serves multiple roles in ecosystems. For example, it can protect riverbanks and shorelines from floods and waves, enhance water quality, provide shelter for aquatic organisms, as well as alter biogeochemical cycles through oxygenation of sediments. The positive impact of ecosystem services provided by aquatic vegetation has been well studied. During the past decades, a significant number of aquatic vegetation (e.g., marsh and mangrove area) has been lost, diminishing these ecosystem services, so there is a growing interest in restoring and managing these systems.
Aquatic vegetation plays an important role in flow, sediment transport, and geomorphic processes. Specifically, vegetation produces an additional drag force that shapes the mean and turbulent velocity profiles, which in turn impacts on sediment transport and geomorphic processes. Furthermore, enhanced deposition within regions of vegetation stabilizes the sediment bed and facilitates the expansion of the vegetated region. To guide restoration and management of aquatic vegetation, it is necessary to quantify the role of vegetation in flow, sediment transport, and geomorphic processes.
In this Article Collection, we welcome original contributions that explore how aquatic vegetation impacts on hydraulic conditions, sediment transport, and geomorphic processes by conducting flume experiments, field observations, and numerical simulations. Key topics include, but are not limited to the following:
- Turbulent structures around the vegetation;
- Damping of waves and currents by vegetation;
- Vegetation drag coefficient;
- Interaction across sediment-flow-air in vegetated channel;
- Effect of vegetation on flow structure and mixing process;
- Influence of vegetation on incipient sediment motion and sediment transport;
- Sediment deposition within and around the vegetation patches;
- Short and long-term development of bedform in the channel with vegetation;
- Coupled flow-sediment-vegetation model;
- Marsh evolution in the river delta.
Guest Advisors biography：
Dr. Yuan Xu is an associate professor at East China Normal University. He studies environmental hydrodynamics and river dynamics, with particular attention to the interaction between flow and vegetation and the feedbacks to sediment transport and seed diffusion. The detailed introduction can be found at: http://english.sklec.ecnu.edu.cn/Staff/Xu_Yuan
Dr. Ping Wang is a professor of the School of Soil and Water Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, his research covers ecological and environmental hydrodynamics. He applied analytical, numerical and experimental techniques to figure out the transport and fate of solute and sediment in waters, and the flow process through vegetation. The detailed introduction can be found at: http://shuibao.bjfu.edu.cn/szdw/zrjs/stbcyhmhfzxkjs/stbcjs/404723.html
Dr. Hyoungchul Park is a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is interested in understanding hydrodynamic processes in nature based on the knowledge of fluid mechanics. Specifically, he primarily analyzes the interactions between turbulent flow and various elements in the fluvial system, such as vegetation and sediment particles, through the laboratory experiment.
