ABSTRACT
Recent experimental studies measured suspended sediment transport through vegetated channels and established that bed shear stress may not be an accurate predictor of sediment transport in vegetated flows. High resolution numerical simulations of flow through vegetation, also suggest that sediment transport predictions based on near bed shear stress and turbulent kinetic energy may be contradictory. In the current study, we conducted 3D high-resolution large eddy simulations of flow and suspended sediment transport through staggered emergent vegetation canopies. We found that: 1) the near bed turbulent kinetic energy (tke) field strongly correlates with the near bed suspended sediment concentration, and 2) the profiles of laterally averaged tke govern the sediment distribution in the water column.
