Postdoctoral Fellow
In natural streams, vegetation may grow in spatially heterogeneous patterns of individual patches. Different flow regimes develop near the vegetation, depending on the evolution of wake structure between the patches. The flow regime affects the ecological, biological, morphological processes in aquatic system. My current research focuses on the growth of turbulent flow structures in the gap between patches and on how the wakes interact to develop flow structure over a wide range of scales. Specifically, I am conducting a series of laboratory experiments with submerged flexible vegetation (Rotala indica), in which I will vary the gap between patches. The experiments will identify the patch spatial density (gap spacing) for which there is a transition from heterogeneous near-bed flow, moving around individual patches, to flow structure defined by a vertical shear layer, with uniformly low velocity near the bed. The result of this study will provide a model to predict real-world fluvial processes such as morphodynamic evolution, flow resistance, and habitat in channels with submerged flexible vegetation patches.