ASSESSMENT OF SAV COLONY’S IMPACTS ON FLOW USING LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS AND NUMERIC SIMULATIONS

Abstract

 “Blue carbon”, carbon absorption due to photosynthesis in aquatic ecosystems, has been considered mitigation measures for climate change. Blue carbon-forming seagrass are not only uniformly distributed throughout shallow water areas but also often distributed in patches, creating a high potential for interactions with currents to create complex flow regimes. As a result, carbon capture in a water body is greatly affected, making it difficult to estimate its sequestration accurately. In response to such problems, a submerged aquatic vegetation model (SAV model) that can reproduce the interaction with the flow field in detail has been proposed in the previous studies. This study aims to clarify the influence of SAV colonies on the flow field using the SAV model. The results confirmed the high reproducibility of the SAV model and indicated that the deflection of SAVs might be a significant factor controlling the flow field around the SAV colony.