Abstract

Haihe is the one of the largest four rivers. Haihe estuary is at the top of the west bay of Bohai, near to Tianjin harbor, Since Haihe River floodgate was built in 1958, sediment deposition of the watercourse of Haihe River estuary is heavy. In recent years, in order to exploit and utilize estuary resource, some regulating researches are done. Because of the construction of the breakwater of Tianjin harbor and reclamation of Tianjin Lingang industrial areas, river training line in both sides of Haihe estuary is changed. Based on the characteristics of transportation of flow and sediment in Haihe River, a two-dimension tide, wind-wave, sediment numerical model was established. Firstly, wind-wave model and a tidal current model are introduced to calculate the wave field and current field, respectively. Through the iteration and coupling calculation of these two models, the wave field and current field interacting with each other are obtained. Then based on the carrying capacity formulae of suspended sediment presented by Dou et al. (1995), a numerical model, which describes the sediment transport in complicated coastal hydrodynamic conditions is fully established.

In this paper, research is focused on hydrodynamics and sediment environment around the Haihe estuary by using the hydrological and sediment data measured in-site. The result shows that the calculated tidal currents and the predicted course of sediment concentration agree with the field data. The prediction of flow pattern and its variations during the course of flood tides and ebb tides are also in agreements with the observed ones. The model can be applied for Haihe River estuary regulation. Research achievements are presented about the change of tidal fields, sediment transport characters and siltation regular in the Haihe estuary and it can be a reference for the development and utilization of the Haihe River estuary.

Keywords: Estuary of the Haihe River; Numerical model; Hydrodynamics and sediment environment