The geomorphology of the Yangtze Estuary in the Changjiang River Delta in Eastern China has been the subject of extensive research. This study extends previous work to examine the influence of wind-waves on the mouth-bar, where about half of the river-borne material settles to the bed. The site is located just outside of Changjiang River mouth, which is meso-tidal and subject to seasonally varying river flows and wind-wave conditions. Modeling was performed with a coupled wave-current hydrodynamic model using TELEMAC and TOMAWAC and validated against observed data. Bottom Shear Stress (BSS) from river, tide and waves based on the numerical model output was used to infer the respective contribution to the evolution of the subaqueous delta. Our examination did not however extend to modeling the sediment transport or the morphological bed changes. The results suggest that (i) the dominance of river discharge is limited to an area inside the mouth, while outside, the mouth-bar is tide-wave dominant; (ii) considering just the tide, the currents on the shallow shoals are flood dominant and deep channels are ebb dominant, which induces continued accretion over the shallows and erodes the deeper parts of the mouth-bar until the tidal currents become too weak to transport sediment; (iii) whereas waves are very efficient at reshaping the shallow shoals, with the effect being subtly dependent on the depth distribution over the mouth-bar; (iv) the stability of shallow shoal morphology is highly dependent on the presence of seasonal wind-waves and characterized as “summer storing and winter erosion” while deep channels perform like corridors of water and sediment, exporting sediment all year round. The nature of the mouth-bar response has important implications for coastal management, such as the ongoing deep water channel maintenance, reclamations and coastal defense measures.

A significant large number of dams have been constructed in the past two centuries in the United States. These dams’ ability to regulate downstream flooding has received world-wide attention. In this study, data from 38 rivers distributed over the entire conterminous Untied States with extensive pre- and post-dam annual peak discharge records, were collected to research the impacts of various dams on the flood behaviors at a national scale. The results indicate that dams have led to significant reductions in flood magnitude for nearly all of the sites; the decrease rate in the mean of annual peak discharge varies between 7.4% and 95.14%, except for the Dead River, which increased by 1.46%. Because of dams’ effectiveness, the probability density curve of annual peak flow changes from a flat to peaked shape because both the range and magnitude of high discharges are decreased. Moreover, the potential impact of dams on flood characteristics were closely related to the dam’s geographic location and function, the ratio of the storage capacity of the dam to the mean annual runoff of the river (C/R), and the ratio of reservoir storage capacity to the area of its drainage (C/D). Specifically, the effects of dams on annual peak flows were more related to latitude than longitude. Compared with dams built for other purposes, the dam exclusively used for flood management cut off more flood peaks. Increases in the ratios of C/R and C/D increased the degree of modification of annual maximum discharge.