Suspended sediment flux at the typical cross sections in the offshore area of Changjiang Estuary

The offshore area of Changiiang estuary is the transitional area of river and ocean,where water and sediment are always transporting towards the sea,and exchanging with Hangzhou bay and alongshore the north of Jiangsu sea area.The method of mechanism analyses and equal_area grids were used in this paper to calculate the suspended sediment flux in the typical cross sections in the study area. The results indicate 44 per cent of sediment from the Changjiang river deposits in the submarine delta, more than 27 percent of remainders transport to the south_east into the alongshore of Hangzhou bay, only 9 per cent of sediment exchanges with the sediment alongshore the north of Jiangsu sea area,and about 20 per cent of total sediment transport to the sea.Advective sediment flux is the most important item,and the tidal pumping effect is the second important item,and the vertical gravitational circulation and vertical tidal oscillation shear contribute little to the total sediment discharge.