Simulation of water surface profiles in channels with staggered rigid emergent vegetation

The vegetation along watercourses has a considerable influence on the flow. In the case of rigid emergent vegetation, the drag coefficient is used to calculate the head loss per unit length. A large number of equations have been proposed in the literature for this coefficient, under uniform or quasi‐uniform flow conditions. In this work, the ability of some of them to simulate profiles of quasi‐uniform steady flow and non‐uniform steady flow measured in the laboratory, for staggered rigid emergent vegetation, was analyzed. The simulated profiles were compared with the experimental ones visually and using statistical parameters. The formula that best simulates the profiles is the one proposed by Sonnenwald et al. (2018), followed by the formula of Kothyari et al. (2009) and that of van Rooijen et al. (2018). The authors intend to carry out new experimental tests, modifying vegetation density and bed slope, to better validate the formulae analyzed.