Flow Resistance in the Presence of Vegetation Patches: A short review alongside a Laboratory Case Study

The primary understanding of flow resistance in a fluvial system was established on initial classic experiments with relatively simple flow conditions such as uniform flow in fairly flat beds. However, for modelling the river flows in the real-world, more complex hydromorphic conditions need consideration. Researchers have presented an analytical outlook during the past decades to address the flow resistance by the break-down of the total flow resistance into more detailed sub-factors. Alongside a laboratory case study, this paper reviews the recent investigations and their contribution to our understanding of flow resistance in the presence of vegetation patches. The results show that combined practice of Boundary Layer Characteristic Method (BLCM) and classic methods (such as Einstein – Strickler) leads to comparable values of vegetation drag coefficient in association with fully empirical approaches

Keywords:

fluvial system , vegetation patches , flow resistance , boundary layer , Einstein – Strickler equation