Against the background of climate change and sea level rise, biodiversity and nature conservation play an increasingly important role in technology and society as well as coastal engineering. Ecosystems like salt marshes provide regulating ecosystem services considering their energy reducing effects on incoming waves at the coastline and supporting sea dikes by strengthening the soil at the toe through their root system architecture. In this technical study laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the influence of surrogate salt marsh meadows on hydraulic processes in a combined foreshore-dike-setup. Varying salt marsh meadow configurations as well as hydraulic parameters yield in a comprehensive data set. Wave reflection, wave transmission, wave set-up and wave run-up were analyzed and compared to previous investigations.
Keimer, K., Schürenkamp, D., Miescke, F., Kosmalla, V., Lojek, O., Goseberg, N. (2021): Ecohydraulics of Surrogate Salt Marshes for Coastal Protection: Wave–Vegetation Interaction and Related Hydrodynamics on Vegetated Foreshores at Sea Dikes. In: Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering, Vol. 147, Issue 6. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)WW.1943-5460.0000667