Waterway Engineering Research Articles

Quantitative Evaluation Method for Construction Disturbance and Ecological Restoration of Waterway Engineering and Its Application

With the increasing emphasis on the ecology and environment of rivers, the construction of ecological waterway projects has become a development trend in China. In recent years, more and more attention has been paid to the qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the ecological effects of ecological waterway construction. Based on pressure-state-response (PSR) and driver-pressure-state-impact-response (DPSIR) logical frameworks, this paper established a state-pressure-impact-response (SPIR) conceptual model. The model took the river ecology and environment state as the main line, and described the disturbance pressure of the engineering construction on the river state, the impacts of the project on the river comprehensive function, and the positive responses taken in the full lifetime cycle of the project. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy evaluation model were used to study the changes of the river ecosystem status after suffering from the construction pressure and taking positive responses. Taking the 12.5 m deep water waterway project in the Taicang-Nantong section of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River as an example, the disturbance on the ecology and environment at different stages of the project construction and the effort of relieving the negative impacts of the project on the ecology and environment were evaluated by the health level of the ecosystem. The paper can provide a scientific method for the evaluation of ecological projects in river ecosystems.

Experimental Study on the Local Scour of Submerged Spur Dike Heads under the Protection of Soft Mattress in Plain Sand-Bed Rivers

Submerged spur dikes are widely applied in the channel regulation structures of plain sand-bed rivers such as the lower reaches of the Yangtze River; thus, the issue of local scour protection near regulating structures is especially important for structure design engineering. To further scientific research on the local scour of submerged spur dike heads, we investigated rulers describing the variance of the incoming flow dynamic, scale of the spur dike body, width of river bottom protection, etc., responding to the maximum local scouring depth of a submerged spur dike and the distance between the submerged spur dike and dam axis under the conditions of river bottom protection. According to principles of dimensional analysis, we established computational formulas for the maximum local scouring depth of a submerged spur dike and the distance between the submerged spur dike and dam axis, with consideration of bottom protection works for the remaining soft mattress. These research results not only enrich existing research on the calculation of local scour of channel-regulating structures, but they are also a relevant technical reference for the design of water conservancy and waterway engineering.

Construction and Application of Waterway Engineering Design Virtual Simulation Cloud System Based on Outcome-Based Education

Hydraulic design is automatically inherent in hydraulic engineering courses, conventional teaching of the Waterway Engineering Design course tends to have limitations such as low participation, poor interactivity, disconnection between theoretical and experimental training, and restriction of experimental design by time and space. To address these needs, a virtual simulation cloud system of Waterway Engineering Design is developed based on outcome-based education. Taking real engineering projects as prototypes, this system adopts virtual reality technology and cloud platform to simulate the scene structure and instrument function with high precision. The multi-model, integrational teaching expands the experimental content, enhances the interactivity of the design process, and provides a high-quality, immersive online learning experience for students. Since its application, the Waterway Engineering Design Virtual Simulation Cloud System has received good feedback from both teachers and students. During the Covid-19 epidemic, it provided significant support for experiments and teaching of the Waterway Engineering Design course and became a pivotal supplement to the existing teaching system. The Waterway Engineering Design Virtual Simulation Cloud System adheres to the "student-centered" teaching principle, builds up students' ability for independent learning and engineering practice, and facilitates their personal development and training for excellent engineers.

Wave Attenuation by Vegetation: Model Implementation and Validation Study

Wave–vegetation interaction is implemented in the WAVEWATCH III (WW3) model. The vegetation sink term followed the early formulations of Dalrymple et al. (Journal of Waterway, Port, Coastal, and Ocean Engineering, 1984, 110, 67–79), which focused on monochromatic waves and vegetation approximated as an array of rigid, vertical cylinders, and was later expanded by Mendez and Losada (Coastal Engineering, 2004, 51, 103–118) for random wave transformations over mildly sloping vegetation fields under breaking and nonbreaking conditions assuming a Rayleigh distribution of wave heights. First, validation is carried out for 63 laboratory cases (Anderson and Smith, 2014) with homogeneous vegetation fields for single and double-peak wave spectra. Then, a field case application is conducted to assess the wave attenuation in a wetland environment with spatially variable vegetation fields during stormy conditions. The case study uses data collected at the Magothy Bay located in the Chesapeake Bay, United States, during Hurricanes Jose and Maria in 2017. The domain decomposition parallelization and the implicit scheme have been used for the simulations to efficiently resolve complex shorelines and high-gradient wave zones, incorporating dominant physics in the complicated coastal zone, including wave breaking, wave–current interaction, bottom friction and scattering, wave–vegetation interaction, and nonlinearity (Abdolali et al., 2020). The lab validation and field application demonstrate that WW3 is an effective tool for evaluating the capacity of wetland natural or nature-based features to attenuate wave energy to achieve coastal flood risk reduction.

Experimental Study on Anti-Scour Property and Erosion Resistance of 3D Mat Materials for Slope Protection in Waterway Engineering

3D mats are environmentally friendly and ecological materials for protecting river and waterway banks. The anti-scour properties of the materials and the erosion resistance of the soil under them can be studied to provide decision support for the selection of slope protection materials and their applicable areas. In this paper, an indoor prototypical scouring experiment with a flume is carried out to study the anti-scour properties of three types of 3D mat materials (vegetation grass mats, Enkamat and reinforced Mike mat) and the erosion resistance of the underlying soil under typical combined conditions of flow rate and water stage. It is concluded that the 3D mats increase the resistance coefficient of the bed surface, and that with the same incoming flow, the average flow velocity is inversely related to the resistance coefficient. There are three scouring modes for 3D mats under the action of water flow: material failure caused by mechanical damage, performance failure caused by serious erosion of the soil mass and non-failure. Of the three mat materials, the reinforced Mike mats are more resistant to scouring than the other two unreinforced materials, and the erosion volume ratios of reinforced Mike mats, vegetation grass mats and Enkamat are 59.24%, 61.81% and 62.17%, respectively, under the same small flow rate and high water stage. The results show that the reinforced Mike mats have the best anti-scour property and soil conservation performance, followed by Enkamat and the vegetation grass mats. In addition, reinforced materials outperform non-reinforced ones in their anti-scour performance and their protection for the underlying soil on the bank slope.

Analysis of Waterway Engineering Survey Based on Digital Mapping

Analysis of Waterway Engineering Survey Based on Digital Mapping

Human impacts on riverbed morphology and hydrology in the lower reaches of the West River, China

AbstractNatural and anthropogenic factors have led to a series of fluvial sedimentation and hydrological changes in the lower West River, China. To evaluate the influence of human activities on the channel's morphology and examine the hydrological responses, we analyzed channel adjustments and changes of low water levels in the main river channel between Wuzhou and Zhaoqing that occurred over the recent decades. Due to a remarkable decrease in the suspended sediment concentration, the suspended sediment outputs during this period were larger than the sediment inputs for 27 consecutive years from 1987 to 2013. Therefore, the riverbed became a sediment source, with a high scouring of riverbed material. Between 2004 and 2014, the channel capacity of the lower reaches increased by 302.02 × 106 m3, and the average riverbed elevation decreased by 2.21 m, approximately 11.8% of which was caused by bed sediment loss induced by natural scour through sediment depletion; the remainder was caused by waterway engineering and sand mining, accounting for 0.8 and 87.4%, respectively. Approximately 91.3% of 1,312 river cross‐sections exhibited downcutting, indicating significant adjustment of the riverbed. This resulted in a substantial decline in the low water level in the 44‐km upstream section above Ducheng, which is located at the end of the tidal limit during dry seasons. However, this change was not noticeable in the section below Ducheng owing to the small water surface gradient and tidal influence. These findings reveal that human activities are a major driving force in the evolution of large rivers and the complexity of the hydrological responses to riverbed downcutting in a tidal reach, providing useful information for future river sand mining management and navigable engineering design of the lower West River and other rivers.

Analysis on the Construction and Safety Management of Port and Waterway Engineering

Analysis on the Construction and Safety Management of Port and Waterway Engineering

Research on Crack Control of Mass Concrete Construction in Port and Waterway Engineering

Research on Crack Control of Mass Concrete Construction in Port and Waterway Engineering

Practice and Exploration of Caisson Technology in Port and Waterway Engineering

Practice and Exploration of Caisson Technology in Port and Waterway Engineering

Waterway Engineering Applications of Automatic Identification System Data along the Mississippi River and at Lock Structures

Abstract The USACE, St. Louis District, is responsible for maintaining navigation channels along with multiple lock and dam structures on the Mississippi River, a vital inland waterway that carries...

Sandy riverbed shoal under anthropogenic activities: The sandy reach of the Yangtze River, China

Large-scale reservoirs change downstream water and sediment conditions, causing adaptive adjustments in erosion and deposition along the riverbed, ultimately impacting sandbar morphology. This study examined the sandy reaches downstream of the China Three Gorges Project along the Yangtze River for river erosion and siltation, riverbed morphology, beach evolution, and other physical processes over the past 40 years, to explain the evolution of river geomorphology under human activities, such as reservoirs, improvement projects, and sand mining. The Shashi reach is approximately 52 km in length; it is the first sandy riverbed downstream of the China Three Gorges Dam. Analysis of topographic data from 1975 to 2018 showed that decreased sediment from the basin resulted in increased riverbed erosion (93.1%, in low-water channel), with sand mining activities destroying the integrity of the central bar. Simultaneously, total sandbar area decreased, thalwegs deepened, river morphological coefficients decreased, and the riverbed became narrower and deeper. The erosion and deposition patterns of the Shashi reach beach and channel have changed from “low shoal erosion-high shoal deposition” to “both low and high shoal erosion”. Additionally, waterway engineering has changed sandbar boundaries, and impacted the evolution of interactions among beach groups. Under quasi-natural conditions, strong interactions occur in sandbar evolution, such as the development of the Taipingkou Channel Bar (TPKCB), which led to Lalinzhou Point Bar (LLZPB) erosion, tail section widening, as well as Sanbatan (SBT) shrinkage and recession of its eastward edge. Owing to the implementation of waterway engineering, the linkage between the TPKCB and the upper section of the LLZPB weakened. The widening of the lower section of the latter has caused the SBT to shrink further and shift westward. Changes in the morphologies and dynamic axes of upstream beach groups have resulted in a sharp reduction of incoming sediment causing the downstream Jinchengzhou Point Bar (JCZPB) to gradually evolve into a shrunken channel bar.

Hydrodynamic modeling to evaluate the influence of inland navigation channel training works on fish habitats in the Upper Yellow River

The need to balance inland waterway engineering with river ecological integrity has attracted increasing attention from waterway engineers. Quantitative tools for evaluating the effects of waterway engineering on fish habitat serve as an effective basis for engineering design assessment and improvement. A tourism waterway construction project along the Upper Yellow River (UYR) is located within a core area of the National Aquatic Germplasm Resources Conservation Area. The evaluation of the habitat design performance of waterway training works (which is similar to the term of Inland navigation channel training works, it involves structures and measures that reshape a river channel to create reliable depths and widths for safe and dependable vessel transit.), however, are rare in China. To evaluate the effects of waterway engineering on fish habitats and improve engineering design, we evaluated the influence of waterway training works on habitats for endangered adult Platypharodon extremus (Han et al., 2016) by applying a 2D hydrodynamic model to three scenarios: with and without training works and with improved training works. The simulations reproduced changes in flow velocity and water depth within the navigation discharges range. The size and distribution of suitability indexes of water depth and flow velocity and their combined habitat suitability index were employed to assess available habitats for adult Platypharodon extremus to evaluate the influence of engineering actions.The simulations show that the habitat losses due to waterway training works in the study reach can be restored by introducing eco-friendly concepts into training structures and dredging design. Habitat availability for adult Platypharodon extremus has been reduced after waterway training works, especially at low and moderate discharges (the percentage of available area decreased from 13.48% to 11.69% at designed lowest navigation discharge). Habitat availability is much less sensitive to training works at high discharge than at moderate levels. The available habitat can be restored to at least 97% of its original level through the introduction of eco-friendly conceptual designs (the percentage of available area at designed lowest navigation discharge can be recovered to 13.41%).

Application of BIM in the Teaching of Smart Harbor Channel and Coastal Engineering

It is very important to change the traditional instructional model of port channel and coastal engineering, in order to promote the interdisciplinary integration of engineering, ecology, environment and information. This paper discussed how to integrate successfully BIM (Building information modeling) and new teaching concept of intelligent port and waterway engineering into the process of teaching, and then gave the teaching plan and introduced the phased results achieved. The results show that BIM technology can be widely and deeply integrated into the teaching process of port channel and coastal engineering, and make the teaching process more stereoscopic and intuitive. So, it can provide reference for the teaching of higher education courses of port channel and coastal engineering.

Research on Investment Decision-Making in Waterway Engineering Based on the Hub Economic Index

Due to the wide range of waterway engineering strategies, the government often has the view that investment in hardware (such as construction, equipment renewal, etc.) is more important than that in software (such as information systems, service concepts, etc.) in the investment decision-making of waterway engineering. Besides, some government departments lack a consideration of coordinated development among different industries, resulting in the waterway industry lagging behind other industries (such as expressways, high-speed railway, etc.). To facilitate a more balanced infrastructure investment, we create a novel index, the Hub Economic Index (HEI), by incorporating the theory of the hub economy into the investment decision-making of waterway engineering. HEI consists of two major criteria, tangible and intangible assets, further divided into 10 indices. In particular, investment allocation between tangible and intangible assets is evaluated for the four major reaches of the North Jiangsu Canal. Multiple years of HEI values for the water transport industry are calculated for trend analysis and comparison with other industries. The results show that (1) through the comparison between the calculated values of the HEI investment model and the actual investment, the deviation of the tangible investment is 2.8% lower, and that of the intangible hub investment is 7.2% higher, which is basically in line with the actual situation. At the same time, it promotes the development of software; and (2) through the variation trends in HEI for various industries from 2008 to 2018, the HEI values of the different industries in the transportation system show a trend of steady growth. This is basically consistent with China’s economic development trend, but also reflects the development gap between the different industries. The research results are of great significance to help the government to make investment decisions in different fields and industries. The investment based on HEI values will further promote the integrated development of the water transport industry and other industries.

Application of Least-Squares Method to Time Series Analysis for 4DPM Matrix

In the past 10 years, considerable attention has been paid to PMBOKM, and it has combined with specific examples. However, quantitative methods are rarely used for analysis. We select Han River Estuary Waterway Engineering Project as a study case. Based on the relationship between the stages of the project management system, it tries to analyse the first five stages of matrix time series of 4DPM in the three major forms by the least squares method, and the method is divided into four steps to solve the matrix. In addition, the matrix is subject to function changes and transpose processing, and then solved by the least squares method too. According to the set solution method, the matrix can be solved, and eight cases can be obtained. By comparing the errors, under the condition of transposed matrix, the function of the most suitable for matrix transmission can be found. So, it is known that the method is feasible and effective in 4DPM model matrix analysis.

Assessment of Nutrient and Heavy Metal Pollution in Channel Dredged Sediments in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze basin

There was a large amount of dredged materials produced stably in the Yangtze waterway each year. How to dispose these dredged materials was a major technical problem in the field of port and waterway engineering. The dredged materials were valuable resource, and the utilization of dredged materials in landscape can be an important direction in the future. To analyze the feasibility of dredging for landscaping, the waterway dredged sediments from middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River basin, such as Dongting Lake, Chenglingji section, Zhenjiang section, Nantong section and Taihu Lake were collected, and the nutrient characteristics, heavy metal content and pollution degree were analyzed. The results showed that the pH, moisture content, petroleum hydrocarbons, organic matter and available P in Yangtze River waterway dredging sediments were 7.28~7.74, 3.75~28.27%, 14.21~121.84 ppm, 1.88~5.29% and 16.96~65.38 ppm respectively, which were moderate pollution and suitable for plants growth. The content of available N and available K content were 67.12~87.97 ppm and 2.78~20.11 ppm, which were too low to meet the needs of plant growth. Extra sources of nitrogen and potassium should be added into the sediments when reused. Dredged sediments were contaminated by heavy metals Cu, Pb and Zn, the evaluation results showed that their enrichment effect was not obvious, which won’t affect the sediment utilization. Dredged sediments were widely contaminated by Cd (0.05~2.68 mg/kg), and there was a certain enrichment effect, so some Cd hyperaccumulators should be planted to remediate Cd in dredged sediments.

Research on Comprehensive Evaluation Index System of Traffic Infrastructure Construction

In order to accelerate the modern engineering management, promote the transformation and upgrading of highway and waterway engineering construction and development, improve the quality, safety and operation service level of highway and waterway engineering, the article sets up an evaluation index system on seven promotion such as engineering design level, management level, technological innovation ability, quality level, safety level, green environment level and soft power of quality engineering. This article combines Delphy Method and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to analyze the weight of the index, select the project to carry on the empirical evaluation. Finally, this article examines the scientificity and rationality of the evaluation index system.

Seabed deposition and erosion change and influence factors in the Yangshan Deepwater Port over the years

The seabed scouring and silting are very important to the construction of port and waterway engineering. Seabed deposition and erosion change is complicated due to the influence of sediment supply, human activities and other factors. The Yangshan Deepwater Port is the new deep water harbor, which is an important part of the Shanghai International Shipping Service Center. Its construction has received much attention. At present, the water depth from the 1st to the 3rd harbor district is currently suitable under regular dredging and tidal current action. The fourth harbor district will be built in the world’s largest fully-automated deep water wharf. In the study, bathymetry change of the entire sea area of the Yangshan Deepwater Port and the 4th harbor district (i.e., Phase IV project) waters were analyzed quantitatively using multiyear bathymetric, hydrological and sediment data. The results show that from 1998 to 2010, seabed changes are characterized by large volumes of erosion and sedimentation, which the southern part was deposited and the northern part was eroded in the inner harbor waters, but the seabed of the Kezhushan inlet was eroded. Seabed changes of Phase IV project waters generally show a scour tendency in recent few years with the annual scour rate about 0.7 m. Among the many factors, the existence of Kezhushan inlet and its influence of the western water flow play an important positive role in water depth changes under the ebb tide action.

Numerical simulation of the oil spilling diffusion in waterway engineering

Taking Guangli waterway engineering of Dongying Port as background, based on hydrodynamic and Euler-Lagrange theory, a numerical model of two-dimensional tidal current and oil spill diffusion is established and verified by measured data. According to different meteorological conditions, choose representative scenes, the drift range of oil film after oil spill accident and its influence on the surrounding water environment are predicted. Results show that: the range and track of oil film are closely related to the oil spilling time and wind direction. Under no wind condition, the oil sweep area is between 45 km2 and 65 km2 in 24h; Under strong wind direction of NW, the furthest distance to the southeast can be up to 23 km, and the oil sweep area is between 70 km2 and 135 km2 in 24h. Oil spills will have different effects on adjacent reserves. It is suggested that emergency response measures should be taken quickly in case of oil spills to minimize the adverse effects on the surrounding marine environment.