Experimental Study on Role of Emergent Artificial Coastal Vegetation in Controlling Wave Run Up

Abstract

Coastal vegetation can protect people and property from erosion and flooding, potentially providing a solution for conservation and development. Recently, there has been a substantial interest in the ability of natural vegetation to protect people and infrastructure from storm, wind, and wave damage. These ecosystem services provide new and powerful reasons for conservation of coastal habitats and may represent solutions that balance conservation and development. Since the costs of installing hard structures for coastal protection are very high; strong negative public reaction to rock emplacements along the coast often aggravate the problem; research in the field of soft measures of coastal protection is important which highlights the need and importance of a sustainable, environment friendly, and cost efficient solution such as coastal or beach vegetation. This paper tries to bring out the effect of artificial emergent vegetation of meadow widths 1 and 2 m on wave run up through an experimental study. The tests were carried out with emergent vegetation placed on the bed of a 50 m long wave flume. For wave heights ranging from 0.08 to 0.16 m at an interval of 0.02 m and wave periods ranging from 1.4 to 2 s in water depths of 0.40 and 0.45 m, measurements of wave run up over the beach slope were observed.