Analysis on sediment transporting capacity by sea power in the Yellow River Estuary

The law of sediment transport in the period of Qingshuigou channel of the Yellow River Mouth has been studied by using the mathematical model and analysis of field data in this paper.The knowledge based on calculated results is as follows: the sediment transporting capacity changes with the evolution of the Yellow River Delta;the more the sand spit of river mouth protrudes out of coastline,the more the sediment load is transported into deep sea;the sediment transporting capacity depends on the relation of the water-sediment ratio for a specified coastline.For the same sediment amount in the incoming flow,the smaller the ratio of sediment concentration to the flow discharge,the more sediment load will be transported into the deep sea,and the reverse is also true.The analysis of the field data indicates that the factors affecting the sediment transport in the Yellow River Mouth are very complicated,including coastline boundaries,various continuous and accidental powers,and so on.The measured distribution of erosion and deposition in the estuary are often resulted from various facts.It is difficult to identify the role of one certain factor from the others.The field data show that the distribution is less related to the incoming water and sediment.In general,the incoming sediment amounts during the period of Qingshuigou channel(1977-2000) are comparatively low,but he proportion of transported sediment into the deep sea is greater than ones during other periods.The percentage of the sediment load transported into the deep sea to the incoming sediment amount is 54%,the average annual sediment amount transported into the deep sea is 283 million tons.However,whether the percentage or the sediment amount in different years may have a big difference.