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.
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.
