Modeling the Mechanics of the fluid-bed-vegetation interactions in coastal and riverine ecosystems.

River meandering and more generally the dynamics of coastal and riverine morphology has focused heavily and interactions between currents, waves, and sediment. Vegetation, however, plays a central role in how the landscape evolves and the “dynamic equilibrium” that nature achieves. The interactions among vegetation, sediment, and water dynamics are still difficult to model mechanistically, but in this work we are attempting to advance quantiative modeling of landscape dynamics that incorporate strong coupling between water, sediment, and vegetation dynamics.