Comment on The Wave-Driven Current in Coastal Canopies by M. Abdolahpour et al.

Laboratory and field measurements made over the past decade have shown the presence of a strong wave-driven mean current in submerged vegetation canopies. Luhar et al. (2010, suggested that this mean current is analogous to the streaming flow generated in wave boundary layers over bare beds, and developed a simple energy and momentum balance model to predict its magnitude. However, this model predicts that the magnitude of the mean current does not depend on canopy spatial density, which is inconsistent with the measurements made by Abdolahpour et al. (2017, in recent laboratory experiments. Motivated by observations that the wave-driven mean flow is most pronounced at the canopy interface, Abdolahpour et al. (2017, proposed an alternate explanation for its origin: It is driven by the vertical heterogeneity in orbital motion created by canopy drag. Such heterogeneity can give rise to incomplete particle orbits near the canopy interface and a Lagrangian mean current analogous to Stokes drift in the direction of wave propagation. A model guided by this physical insight and dimensional analysis is able to generate much more accurate predictions. This comment aims to reconcile these two different models for the wave-driven mean flow in submerged canopies.

Automated summary

Laboratory and field measurements over the past decade have shown the presence of a strong wave-driven mean current in submerged vegetation canopies. Different studies have proposed conflicting explanations and models for this phenomenon. A new model suggests that incomplete particle orbits near the canopy interface, caused by vertical heterogeneity in orbital motion due to canopy drag, are the reason for the mean current.