As first step in the project, we designed and manufactured physical models of seagrass made of plastic material so that they replicated the geometrical and mechanical properties of the natural plants. With such physical models we built seagrass meadows in an open-channel flume facility that allowed generating waves in the absence/presence of a following current. During the experiments we measured the wave height along the seagrass meadow to characterise its wave damping properties.
Thus, we collected the largest dataset of seagrass wave damping to date, which we used to develop a new model for predicting the wave damping of seagrass accurately across a wide range of conditions in the absence of current. These results were disseminated at scientific conferences and with a peer-reviewed publication. As for the wave damping in the presence of a current, our experimental data indicate that the most advanced models underpredict wave damping almost systematically - we disseminated such result at a scientific conference.
In the second part of the project, we conducted field experiments with a portable flume facility to investigate the effects of seagrass on sediment mobility. We ran experiments on both bare beds and on beds within seagrass meadows monitoring the particles being suspended as the flow velocity increased. At each site we collected samples of sediments and seagrass to characterise them.