Aim of the present work is to contribute to the knowledge about the interaction between the flow induced by waves and the aquatic vegetation. More in details, the results of preliminary tests of an experimental laboratory investigation about the response of a Posidonia Oceanica meadow to wave motion in shallow waters is reported. A wide attention was posed to the behavior of a synthetic plants with plastic material. To this aim an image acquisition technique was used to analyze and compare the movement of both the artificial plant and the real one. The experiments carried out about the interaction between the artificial meadow and the waves showed a significant wave dumping, in particular in the case of plants having the same length of the water depth.

Surface wave interaction with aquatic vegetation appears to play a key role in coastal hydro-morpho-dynamics. As an example, the presence of a dense meadow at intermediate water depth is usually associated with a stable and resilient shore. Wave-meadow interactions are investigated here by means of physical modeling, with a focus on wave height distribution and hydrodynamics. The central part of a wave flume is covered by flexible artificial seagrass, composed of polyethylene leaves. This vegetation is tested in both near emergent and submerged conditions. The wave height reduction is evaluated by means of a drag coefficient defined from linear wave theory, which contains all the unknowns of the adopted

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