Ecohydraulics of Surrogate Salt Marshes for Coastal Protection: Wave–Vegetation Interaction and Related Hydrodynamics on Vegetated Foreshores at Sea Dikes
Publication: Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering
Volume 147, Issue 6
Abstract
Vegetation on foreshores in close vicinity to sea dikes may prove beneficial as regulating ecosystem service in the context of coastal defense, dike safety, and flood protection by reducing loads on these defense structures. Predominantly, a decrease in wave heights and bottom shear stresses is hypothesized, which calls for an inclusion in design procedures of coastal defense structures. In contrast to heterogeneous and variable salt marsh vegetation, this study uses surrogate vegetation models for systematic hydraulic experiments in a wave flume, without modeling specific plant species a priori. Froude-scale experiments are performed in order to investigate the effect of salt marsh vegetation on the wave transformation processes on the foreshore and wave run-up at sea dikes. The effect of plant and wave properties on wave transmission, energy dissipation, and wave run-up at a 1:6 sloped smooth dike are presented and discussed, focusing on the wave–vegetation–structure interaction. Vegetated foreshores can contribute to wave attenuation, where an increasing relative vegetation height hv/h results in decreased wave run-up on the dike by up to 16.5% at hv/h = 1.0.
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Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the financial support by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in the framework of the EcoDike project SP3.3 (Grant ID No. 03F0757B).
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Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering
Volume 147 • Issue 6 • November 2021
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Received: Jan 30, 2021
Accepted: Jun 4, 2021
Published online: Aug 13, 2021
Published in print: Nov 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Jan 13, 2022
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