Research & Projects

Sediment dynamics plays an important role in physical and chemical processes in Lake Environment. Nutrient absorbed by the sediment particles would stay in the water column and transport along with sediment. Thus the nutrients stays longer in the water body rather than settling down quickly. Suspended sediment in the water body will also decrease the water clarity and the light penetration, which is the negative influence on the ecosystem of submersed vegetation like macrophyte. Moreover, the muddy bed material containing large amount of nutrient could be stirred up by the combined forces of wind, wave and current. Consequently it could lead to a booming of nutrient in water body and may cause algae bloom, bad smells of the water, directly causing drinking water quality problem, aquaculture problems, etc.

This kind of problem is particularly serious in large shallow lakes like the Lake Taihu due to its shallowness. Many researches have been carried out in studying hydrodynamics, ecology, biology of the Lake Taihu and other shallow lakes. However, the sediment dynamics, the processes of sedimentation, resuspension and transportation in shallow lakes under combined forces from wind, wave and current is not fully understood.

Therefore, this research is aiming:

  1. To study the resuspension, transportation, mixing and deposition mechanism of sediment under wind, wave and current in large shallow lakes;

  2. Specifically for the ecology status of Taihu Lake, to reveal fundamental physics and significance of different physical factors, such as wind force, wave, current, bathymetry, sediment distribution, existing vegetation and distributions of various species etc., and to clarify the linkage of water quality and sediment dynamics.