Print Email Facebook Twitter Wave attenuation through forests under extreme conditions Title Wave attenuation through forests under extreme conditions Author van Wesenbeeck, B (TU Delft Coastal Engineering; Deltares) Wolters, Guido (Deltares) Antolínez, José A. Á. (TU Delft Coastal Engineering; Deltares) Kalloe, S.A. (TU Delft Coastal Engineering) Hofland, Bas (TU Delft Hydraulic Structures and Flood Risk) de Boer, W.P. (Deltares) Çete, Ceylan (Student TU Delft) Bouma, Tjeerd J. (Universiteit Utrecht; NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research) Date 2022 Abstract Worldwide, communities are facing increasing flood risk, due to more frequent and intense hazards and rising exposure through more people living along coastlines and in flood plains. Nature-based Solutions (NbS), such as mangroves, and riparian forests, offer huge potential for adaptation and risk reduction. The capacity of trees and forests to attenuate waves and mitigate storm damages receives massive attention, especially after extreme storm events. However, application of forests in flood mitigation strategies remains limited to date, due to lack of real-scale measurements on the performance under extreme conditions. Experiments executed in a large-scale flume with a willow forest to dissipate waves show that trees are hardly damaged and strongly reduce wave and run-up heights, even when maximum wave heights are up to 2.5 m. It was observed for the first time that the surface area of the tree canopy is most relevant for wave attenuation and that the very flexible leaves limitedly add to effectiveness. Overall, the study shows that forests can play a significant role in reducing wave heights and run-up under extreme conditions. Currently, this potential is hardly used but may offer future benefits in achieving more adaptive levee designs. To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:7cdc2855-488a-481f-afc0-4ac31fbbb85f DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-05753-3 ISSN 2045-2322 Source Scientific Reports, 12 (1) Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2022 B van Wesenbeeck, Guido Wolters, José A. Á. Antolínez, S.A. Kalloe, Bas Hofland, W.P. de Boer, Ceylan Çete, Tjeerd J. Bouma Files PDF s41598_022_05753_3_1.pdf 1.51 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:7cdc2855-488a-481f-afc0-4ac31fbbb85f/datastream/OBJ/view