A good understanding of the interaction between flow, vegetation, and sediment is required for successful river restoration and sustainable flood management. The purpose of this paper is to provide a summary of available methods to determine flow resistance of natural rivers with vegetation, and discuss the influence of vegetation on erosion and sedimentation processes. Recently, significant advances have been made, but the effects of vegetation on flow and sediment dynamics are still not fully understood. Possible solutions to close the gaps in the current knowledge are suggested, with special focus directed to the determination of the interactive width between main channel and vegetated floodplains, the flow resistance of flexible vegetation with and without leaves, and the flow over submerged vegetation with low water depth.