Study on the Characteristics of Temporal and Spatial Variation of Suspended Sediment in the Pearl River Estuary

The Lingding Estuary is one of the main parts of the whole Pearl River Delta, which lies in the South Sea, China. It is about 60 km wide from Hong Kong in the east to Macao in the west and the water areas are approximately 2110 km². The process of suspended sediment movement is influenced by many factors, such as the estuarine geometry, tidal range and ravine flows etc.. In this paper, large scale hydrological observations in the Lingding Estuary have been respectively carried out in July, 2003. Based on these data, characteristics of temporal and spatial variation of suspended sediment concentration (SSC) in the Lingding Estuary are studied. The research result shows that SSC changes with the variation of tide current and runoff, the sediment re-suspension is often occurred 1–2 hour following the flood or ebb tide. The maximum turbidity appears near the gauging station V3. In the flood dominant stage, the sediments move towards the mainland, while during the ebb sediments move down.