RISUD Research Seminar: The Role of Mangrove Forests in Coastal Protection

Mangrove forests widely spread along tropical and subtropical coasts around the world. Besides their ecological functions, mangrove forests provide additional values of protecting coastline by blocking waves and attracting sediments. 


In this presentation, Prof. LIN will start from general review of mangrove distributions in the world, followed by a more detailed introduction of its current status in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area. He will then discuss how to assess wave damping rates by different mangroves based on theoretical analysis. This approach often requires correct use of drag coefficients that can be obtained from field measurements or laboratory experiments. Alternatively, a CFD model can also be used for such a purpose, with inclusion of flexible body simulation. He will briefly introduce his recent work of extending the early CFD models to simulate flexible vegetation like mangroves under extreme wave action.


After careful validation of the model, it is employed to study the performance of an ecological sea dike system, which is composed of traditional concrete structure of seawall and planted mangroves, under a super-typhoon condition.

Biography

Prof. LIN Pengzhi 

Changjiang Distinguished Professor, 
State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering, 
Sichuan University

Prof. LIN Pengzhi is a member of European Academy of Sciences and Arts. He obtained his Ph. D. degree from Cornell University in 1998. He conducted postdoctoral research at Cornell and Hong Kong Polytechnic University from 1998-2000. In 2000, he joined National University of Singapore as an Assistant Professor and became a tenured Associate Professor in 2005. Now he is a Changjiang Distinguished Professor at Sichuan University, China. His research interests cover hydraulic, coastal and ocean engineering. He is an expert in computational hydrodynamics and its applications in various water-related problems. He is the author of the books “Numerical Modeling of Water Waves” and “Water Environment Modeling”. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed journal papers, which receive over 10,000 citations. He is the Chief Editor of Applied Ocean Research and the Associate Editor for Journal of Hydraulic Research, Journal of Hydro-environment Research, Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, Journal of Ocean Engineering and Marine Energy, and Water Science and Engineering.