SOME ASPECTS OF COASTAL ENGINEERING RESEARCH WORKS IN CHINA

Abstract

China has a long coastline. Only for the continental part of China, the length of coastline amounts to 18,000 km and, when including the coastline of more than 6,400 islands, an overall length of more than 32,000 km may be counted. As far as the geographical features are concerned, China is characterized by the prevalence of plateau in the west, such as plateau of Tibet and Sinkiang regions and plateau of Yunnan and Kweichow provinces. There are nearly a hundred rivers, the most prominent of which are: the Yangtze River, the Yellow River, the Pearl River etc., flowing from west to east into the Pacific, and carrying about 2,000 million tons of sediment each year to the sea. As a result, silty coasts prevail in the vicinity of estuaries while sandy coasts emerge from a distance away. Generally speaking, the depth of coastal waters is comparatively small, especially along the silty coasts, where the beach profile presents a very gentle slope, varying from 1/50 to 1/500, and in some extreme cases even to 1/2000. Hence the maintenance of water depth in coastal harbours and estuaries has become one of salient problems of coastal engineering in our country.