The impact of waves on aquatic canopy flow

Abstract

© 2018 Australasian Fluid Mechanics Society. All rights reserved. Benthic canopies (e.g., seagrass meadows, coral reefs and kelp forests) are important parts of coastal environments, providing a range of ecosystem services. The drag exerted by these complex bottom roughnesses profoundly impacts the mean flow and turbulence structure and, consequently, the physical and bio-geochemical processes within these ecosystems. While previous studies have mainly focused on steady flow environments (e.g., rivers, lakes and tide-dominated estuaries), many submerged canopies in coastal environments are subjected to oscillatory flows driven by surface waves. This study aims to investigate dynamics generat..