Collaborative Research: Generalizing Drag Estimation for Rigid and Flexible Vegetation Canopies to Quantify Environmental Processes

Understanding how aquatic plant canopies interact with flowing water is crucial for many aspects of environmental science, including river habitat restoration, flood management, and sustainable energy solutions. This project focuses on studying the forces that influence the movement and stability of these underwater and emergent canopies. By examining flexible and rigid plant structures in river environments, the researchers aim to uncover the complex interactions between water flow and plant life. The findings will enhance our ability to predict and manage water flow in natural and engineered environments, leading to more effective conservation strategies and improved designs for renewable energy systems. The project also promotes community engagement and education, with efforts to involve students from under-represented communities in STEM through university programs and public outreach activities, including interactive exhibits and public lectures. The research involves a combination of experiments and numerical simulations to investigate how different types of plant canopies affect water flow and drag forces. Experiments will measure the overall resistance of plant canopies and analyze the flow patterns around them. Advanced flow and object-tracking techniques will be used to capture detailed data on canopy movements and water currents. Numerical simulations will complement these experiments by better understanding local drag forces and drag distribution within canopies. Artificial neural networks will be developed to predict the drag of canopies in various configurations. This project will generate comprehensive datasets to train machine learning models, ultimately leading to a generalized formulation for predicting canopy drag in different environments. The results will be shared through publications, presentations, and a publicly accessible digital repository, contributing to the broader scientific knowledge and practical applications in the field. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.