Temporal and spatial variations of the Huanghe River mouth bars

On the basis of the bathymetric records of 371 survey sections in the present Huanghe mouth area from 1996 to 2001, the temporal and spatial variations of the Huanghe mouth bars were studied by using GIS technology. The variation of the mouth bars is closely related to the water and sediment discharges from the Huanghe River to the sea that has been decreasing drastically in recent years, and to coastal hydrodynamic regimes. The characteristics of the mouth bars are unique in contrast with those of other estuaries in the world. (1) The mouth bars of the Huanghe River consist of many small sandbars. Usually the sandbars are of ellipse-shape with the long axis of about 1~6 km, and short axis of about 1~4 km. The long axis is parallel to the principal direction of tidal current, and the short axis is variable, depending on the local dynamics. The crest of the sandbars is only about 0.4 m below the water surface at low tide. They are distributed within an area of 20 km2, not far from the river mouth area. The present mouth bars are in small-medium size, quite different from the large one formed during the 1970s and 1980s, when the river sediment discharge was several times larger than that after 1996. (2) The scale of a river mouth bar is related to the river discharge of that year. In 1997 sediment discharge from the Huanghe River was 42 Mt, and the mouth bar consisted of several small scattered sandbars. In 1998 the size of mouth bars was much larger than that in 1997, as the sediment discharge from the Huanghe River increased to 363 Mt. Variation of the mouth bars largely depends on the sediment discharge with a correlation coefficient of 0.78. The calculation of the volume of the mouth bar area shows that about 30%~40% of the river's into-sea sediment is deposited in the mouth bar area. (3) Compared with other large estuaries in the world, the Huanghe mouth bars have three unique features in responding to its high sediment concentration: small size, steep slope gradient and shallow crest depth.