Effects of aquatic vegetation on flow in the Nansi Lake and its flow velocity modeling

Abstract

Aquatic vegetation has significant effects on flow in waters. In this article, four types of water areas were analyzed according to the field survey on water depth and vegetation in the Nansi Lake for the East Line Project of Water Transfer from South to North in China (WTSNC). The depth-averaged 2-D hydrodynamic models with and without consideration of the effects of aquatic vegetation on flow were established to simulate flow fields in vegetated and non-vegetated zones in the Nansi Lake. With the established models, flow fields were predicted under the conditions of water transfer from south to north. The results indicate that when the drag force term exerted by aquatic vegetation is considered, the computed velocities agree well with the measured data, whereas as the drag term is taken into account, the computed velocities are obviously larger than the measured data in the vegetated zone and considerably smaller in the non-vegetated zone, and the error range between the two velocities is large if this problem is dealt with the method of increasing the roughness coefficient of the lake-bed to reflect the vegetation drag force. In addition, it is demonstrated that the emerged vegetation exerts larger effects on flow than submerged vegetation comparing the results in the emerged vegetation (reed) zone (EVZ) and the submerged vegetation zone (SVZ).