Stability of the Stratification of Water Bodies in the North Passage of the Yangtze River Estuary Based on the EFDC Model

To study the stratified stability of a water column in the North Passage of the Yangtze River Estuary,a numerical model of the hydrodynamics of this estuary is established using the EFDC model.On the basis of EFDC results,this paper derives and pro-vides the discriminative index of water body stability caused by salinity and analyzes the along-range variation in water body strati-fication stability in the North Passage of the Yangtze River Estuary and the periodic variation at a key location(bend area)based on the simulation results of the numerical model.This work shows that the water body in the bend area varies between mixed and strati-fied types,and the vertical average flow velocity has a good negative correlation with the differential velocity between the surface and bottom layers of the water body.The model simulation results validate the formulae for the stratified stability discriminant during spring tides.

In-Situ Observation of Fluid Mud in the North Passage of Yangtze Estuary, China

Observations of fluid mud were made in the lower North Passage of the Yangtze Estuary in February 2000, on 10～11 August 2000, on 30～31 August 2000 (after two strong typhoons), on 21～24 August 2000 (neap tide) and on 3～6 September 2000 (mean tide) respectively. In situ data show that the fluid mud in this area consists of fine cohesive sediment (median size 7.23 μm). The formation and movement of fluid mud varied during the neap-spring and flood-ebb tidal cycle. Observations suggest that fluid mud phenomena in this area may be categorised in a three-fold manner as slack water, storm and saltwedge features. The thickness of the fluid mud layer of slack water during the neap tide ranged from 0.2 to 0.96 m, whereas during the mean tide, the thickness ranged from 0.17 to 0.73 m, and the thickness of the fluid mud layer was larger during slack water than at the flood peak. Shoals cover an area of 800 km2 with a water depth smaller than 5 m. Erosion of these extensive intertidal mudflats due to storm action provides an abundant sediment source. This is particularly significant in this estuary when the tidal level is lower than 5 m. The lower North Passage is a typical zone of saltwater wedging, so the saltwedge fluid mud has the most extensive spatial range in the estuary.

Morphological Evolution and Its Response to the Navigational Improvements in the North Passage,Yangtze Estuary

By use of bathymetric chart, recent change of the riverbed in the North Passage of the Yangtze Estuary has been studied in this paper. The main channel of the upper, middle and lower （section） in the North Passage has been successively eroded and its groin field significantly deposited. At the same time, sediment has been deposited on the entrance region. Erosion and deposition had responded rapidly to the construction of the regulation engineering. There was about one year duration of lagging between erosion in the deep channel and the construction of the regulation engineering. The siltation lag of time in the groin field varied with the initial depth, but the average deposited thickness was about 0.5 m per year. Volumetric analysis demonstrates that there is a increasing trend of siltation in the North Passage after 2002, because of the difference in duration and quantity between erosion in the deep channel and deposition in the groin field. The water volume of the North Passage was reduced by =9% （280 million m^3） between 2002 and 2006. Sediment budget reveals that the main sediment deposited in the North Passage takes its source from the river and the ocean. The decreasing water volume was attributable to shoaling in the groin field. Its triggering factors for increased sedimentation are the navigational improvements（jetties and groins） after 1998, which altered the passage boundary and destroyed the equilibrium state on the average ebb and flood sediment fluxes. The establishment of a stable estuary is attributed to a reduction in depth of the groin field. The forecast on the sediment deposition quantity and continuous infilling time in the groin system is about 325 × 10^6m^3 and 6 - 7 years, respectively.