The research areas in the Division of Estuary and Coast include estuarine & coastal hydrodynamics, sediment transport mechanics, salty water intrusion, estuarine maximum turbidity zone, estuary evolution and development, estuarine & coastal storm surge forecasting and its influences on coastal projects, etc.
Over the past several decades, major efforts have been made to study the estuary & coast evolution and development, such as evolution and regulation of the Yellow River Estuary, evolution and mitigation of the mouth bar, the effects of tail siltation upon the flood routing in the upstream , feedback influence of estuarine process on tail channel course, the numerical modeling of salinity and sediment concentration in the Yangtze River Estuary and the Hangzhou Bay, and control engineering of salt-tide intrusion into the northern branch and development of fresh-water source area in the southern branch of the Yangtze River estuary, siltation of the dredged channel in the Yangtze River estuary.
In recent years, research activities have focused upon the Pearl River estuary that has complex river system. The completed research projects include "Analysis on the flow & sediment dynamical properties and application of remote sensing techniques into the network-river system and estuarine area of the Pearl River delta "," Influence of the short-term estuary regulation scheme and alternative scheme upon flow field and sediment transport in the Pearl River estuary, " Influence of the Gongdong-Hongkong-Macao bridge on flood prevention, tide-admitting, the flow field and sediment transport "and" 2D numerical modelling of tidal current and sediment in the Huangmaohai Sea ", etc. In addition, quite a few sediment problems with other types of estuarine & coastal engineering have also been addressed, such as the approach channel and harbor basin of the Lianyungang harbor, the water-intake engineering of the Tianwan nuclear power plant, the navigation channels of the Tianjin harbor and the Huanghua harbor, etc.
The Division has also developed or been licensed to use sophisticated numerical models, including 1D flow & sediment model for network-river system, MIKE21, 2D/3D tidal & sediment numerical models and triply two-way nested-grid ocean circulation, temperature, salinity and storm surge-forecasting model.
At present, the Division has seven employees, including two professor-level senior engineers, two senior engineers, two engineers, among them three holding doctoral degree.
1) Satellite image of the Yellow River Estuary ( 黄河河口卫星影像图)
2) The Pearl River Delta （珠江三角洲）
3) The Bohai flow filed simulated by MIKE21 （MIKE21模型模拟的渤海流场图）
4) Suspend sediment concentrations in the Lingdingyang Sea computed by 3D numerical model （三维模型计算的伶仃洋含沙量分布）
Main research fields:
?Sediment transport and estuaries & coasts evolution
?Techniques for sand utilization in the estuarine area
?Wave & tide interaction and sediment movement
?Storm surge forecasting and disaster assessment
?Sediment problems in water intake/releasing engineering of thermal/nuclear power plants
?Evolution mechanism of the coast and beach
?Estuarine waterway regulation measures
?Harbor siltation and its reduction techniques
?Siltation downstream the gate and its reduction techniques
?Course-stabilizing measures for high sediment concentration estuaries
?Sediment problems with reclamation engineering within the estuarine area
