Abstract: Flow velocity distribution of a river under the influence of vegetation is an important index for evaluating its flood discharge capacity and a major factor of riverbed stability and river safety. This paper sums up recent advances in the research of flow velocity distributions of vegetated rivers in China and abroad, focusing on the patches of submerged vegetation with continuous and uniform distributions. We expound the formation mechanism of flow velocity profiles, and analyze the state-of-the-art research and its shortcomings in formulating analytical solutions for the zoned flow velocity distributions and developing average flow velocity models. Based on the literature, applicability and accuracy of previous average flow velocity models are evaluated. We emphasize that for river channels with vegetation patches of continuous and uniform distribution, most of the previous studies on the solution for flow velocity have focused on single vegetation type and simple vegetation shape in straight channels under uniform flow conditions. And future research of the flow velocity distributions should put more efforts on the resistance coefficients of submerged vegetation, bed stress under the influence of vegetation, non-uniform flow conditions, and flexible vegetation patches of finite sizes.

Key words: vegetation hydraulics, submerged vegetation, turbulence characteristics, velocity distribution, average velocity