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Flow resistance of emergent vegetation

  • Michigan Technological University
  • University of Mississippi
  • United States Department of Agriculture

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

River restoration and bioengineering programs commonly use vegetation to stabilize banks. For this, it is important to know the forces that the flowing river water exerts on the vegetation. To this end, a laboratory study was performed at the USDA-ARS National Sedimentation Laboratory. Dowels were used to simulate emergent rigid vegetation. Dowels were systematically placed in the laboratory flume, beginning with a single dowel connected to a load cell to measure the drag force and then placing dowels around the single dowel to determine any shielding effect. It was found that the drag coefficient of a single dowel ranged from 4.5 to 6.5, which is higher than that published for a 2-D cylinder of infinite length. A momentum balance analysis shows that (1) for the single dowel case, the momentum balance approach determines C D>>1 contrary to the low values for a cylinder and (2) the C D for the measured dowel is about two times higher than the momentum formulation. This difference is attributed to the presence of large standing waves upstream of the dowel and the breaking of these waves. When additional vegetation elements were added to form a matrix, it was found that as vegetation elements were added, the drag forced increased initially due to the vegetation concentrating the flow towards the instrumented dowel, and then decreased due to dowels being directly upstream of the instrumented dowel and thereby blocking the flow. These results have implications for managed planting arrangements in stream corridor rehabilitation programs.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 2004 World Water and Environmetal Resources Congress
Subtitle of host publicationCritical Transitions in Water and Environmental Resources Management
EditorsG. Sehlke, D.F. Hayes, D.K. Stevens
Pages1398-1406
Number of pages9
StatePublished - 2004
Event2004 World Water and Environmental Resources Congress: Critical Transitions in Water and Environmental Resources Management - Salt Lake City, UT, United States
Duration: Jun 27 2004Jul 1 2004

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 2004 World Water and Environmetal Resources Congress: Critical Transitions in Water and Environmetal Resources Management

Conference

Conference2004 World Water and Environmental Resources Congress: Critical Transitions in Water and Environmental Resources Management
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySalt Lake City, UT
Period06/27/0407/1/04

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