ABSTRACT
Relying on the golden waterway, the construction of the Yangtze River Economic Zones Project has been raised to the national core strategy of China. Nevertheless, many bridges being built or having been built severely limit the development Yangtze River’s Golden Waterway. Riverbed evolutions in bridge reaches tend to affect navigation channel conditions. Changes of flow and sediment lead to dramatic riverbed evolutions after the impoundment of Three Gorges Project (TGP), which makes navigation conditions in bridge reaches difficult and hazardous for the settled navigation spans. In this paper, the authors firstly review the tensions between bridges and waterway in the middle of Yangtze River and navigation problem researches in bridge areas. Then, Taipingkou waterway of Jingzhou Yangtze River Bridge is taken as a case study to analyze its channel variations and navigation-obstruction characteristics by field observation data. Also, based on fixed physical model experiment of Taipingkou, we study the flow characteristics and waterway regulation projects effects.
