SPATIAL EFFECTS OF ARTIFICIAL SEAGRASS PATCHES ON HYDRO- AND MORPHODYNAMICS

Seagrass meadows are important ecosystems which provide several ecosystem services such as attenuation of hydrodynamic forces (Paul et al 2012; Taphorn et al. 2021), stabilization of sediment and carbon sequestration. Thus, seagrass can be a part of coastal protection and plays an important ecological role, suitable to be considered as nature-based solution. As seagrass requires stable sediment, low turbidity and low to moderate hydrodynamic conditions to establish, gaps between patches may not close naturally if these conditions are not met within them. Therefore, we investigate the hydro- and morphodynamic effects of artificial seagrass meadows in two different layouts (compact and checkerboard pattern) in hydraulic experiments. In order to determine direction dependencies, we varied the wave propagation angle. Thus, this research advances the understanding of wave- vegetation interaction in terms of patchiness and varying wave angles.