Effects of Vegetation on Open Channel Flow and Sediment Transport
A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Hydraulics and Hydrodynamics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 December 2025 | Viewed by 148
Special Issue Editors
Interests: environmental hydraulics; solute and sediment transport; computational fluid dynamics; numerical simulation; fluvial hydraulics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Aquatic vegetation profoundly influences hydrodynamic processes and sediment dynamics in open channels, shaping river morphology, ecological habitats, and sediment transport efficiency. Vegetation alters flow resistance, turbulence characteristics, and bed shear stress while modulating sediment deposition, resuspension, and nutrient retention via complex flow–vegetation interactions. These effects vary with vegetation density, flexibility, and spatial arrangement, resulting in heterogeneous velocity profiles, enhanced turbulence kinetic energy, and modified sediment transport pathways.
Recent advances in numerical methods—including large-eddy simulations, lattice Boltzmann models, and Lagrangian particle tracking—have enabled high-fidelity investigations of vegetation–flow–sediment interactions, resolving instantaneous turbulence and particle clustering mechanisms. Experimental studies further demonstrate vegetation's role in stabilizing riverbeds, mitigating erosion and enhancing ecological resilience. Nevertheless, challenges remain in modelling non-equilibrium sediment transport, vegetation-induced turbulence scaling, and multi-phase flow dynamics.
This Special Issue invites contributions addressing vegetation impacts on open channel hydraulics and sediment processes, including but not limited to, the following: turbulence–vegetation–sediment coupling mechanisms; numerical and experimental methods for resolving vegetated flows; sediment transport under unsteady or heterogeneous vegetation conditions; ecological implications of vegetation-mediated flow and morphodynamics; and applications in river restoration, flood management, and sustainable engineering.
Dr. Mengyang Liu
Dr. Yanxu Wang
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- aquatic vegetation
- sediment transport
- vegetation–flow–sediment interaction
- turbulence
- eco-hydraulics
- open channel flow
- river morphology
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