Abstract:
Coastal ecosystems, such as seagrass and salt marsh, diminish the impact of storm surges and waves. In addition, these ecosystems sequester carbon, called blue carbon, more rapidly than terrestrial forests. Because of these attributes, coastal vegetation is considered an integral part of climate mitigation and adaptation. Predicting the value of these ecosystems with regard to coastal protection and/or blue carbon credit requires models for the interaction of fluid motion with flexible vegetation. This talk describes the development of scaling laws to predict the drag on individual plants, and the extension of these laws to predicted wave decay over a meadow of plants. Models of seagrass and marsh grass are considered. The impact of vegetation on wave-driven resuspension is also considered.
Short Bio:
Heidi Nepf is the Donald and Martha Harleman Professor of Civil Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union. She received a doctorate from Stanford (1992) and was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution before beginning her career at MIT in 1993. She is internationally known for her work on the impact of vegetation on currents, waves, and sediment transport in channels, wetlands, and coastal zones.
