MODELING OF WAVE ATTENUATION BY VEGETATION WITH XBEACH

Over the past decades the effect of vegetation (e.g. kelp, mangroves, sea grass) on nearshore coastal processes has received more and more attention. In recent years several numerical wave models have been extended to include this effect. In the current study, the numerical storm impact model XBeach was extended with formulations found in literature for damping of short waves, infragravity waves, and mean flow. The model was then verified using a number of laboratory test cases. XBeach was well able to reproduce the damping effect of vegetation on waves, even though the amount of calibration done was limited. This work is considered as a first step only, and further model developments regarding vegetation implementation in XBeach are foreseen for the near future. Eventually, XBeach should be able to accurately take into account the effect of relatively complex vegetation species (e.g. mangroves) on the nearshore hydro- and morphodynamics in a computationally efficient way.