Abstract
Recently, it has been widely recognized that coastal vegetations may have great value in supporting fisheries, protecting from wave attack, stabilizing the sea bed and maintaining good scenery. Hydrodynamic factors play a major role in the functions of water quality and ecosystems. However, the studies on physical and numerical process of wave propagation are few and far behind compared to those on the hydrodynamic roles of coastal vegetations. In general, Vegetation flourishing along the coastal areas attenuates the incident waves, through momentum exchange between stagnated water mass in the vegetated area and rapid mass in the un-vegetated area. This study develops a numerical model for describing the wave attenuation rate in the complex topography with the vegetation area. Based on the numerical results, the physical properties of the wave attenuation are examined under various wave, geometric and vegetation conditions. Through the comparisons of these results, the effects of the vegetation properties, wave properties and model parameters such ac the momentum exchange coefficient have been clarified.