An expert consultation meeting was held in Nanjing from October 19^th to 20^th, 2020, supported by Water and Sediment Changes and Major Engineering Safety of the Yangtze River Estuary (Grant No: 2107YFC0405400), a key special project of the National Key Research and Development Program, Efficient Development and Utilization of Water Resources. At the meeting, an expert panel headed by Prof. HU Chunhong, CAE academician, was established. More than 60 pertinent professionals were present, including project manager Prof. DOU Xiping, NHRI Chief Engineer, subject managers, and representatives from NHRI Research Management Department and other participating organizations.

Prof. DOU started with an overview of the project, and introduced the project schedule and expectations. Each subject manager then reported his/her research results. The expert panel, after sufficient inquiries and discussions, concluded that researchers had adopted various technical methods for the completion of such assigned missions of each subject as the change trend of input conditions and corresponding response mechanism of main estuary dynamic factors, dynamic-engineering-shoal-though mutual feedback mechanism under changing conditions, material transport simulation, shoal and though evolution prediction, safety risk assessment and regulation technology of major projects, and measures to reduce sedimentation in deep water channel and to improve water supply probability in the water source areas of the Yangtze River Estuary in their research. Fruitful results have been achieved with correct technical routes, technical scheme proposals of sedimentation reduction in the deep water channel of the Yangtze River Estuary, and safety insurance and storm surges and salt intrusion prevention in water source areas, prediction of back silting quantity after the stabilization of the deep water channel regulation project, and the main assessment indexes achieved that the annual sedimentation of the deep water channel will be reduced by over 10⁷m³ and the probability of water supply in important water source areas increased by more than 2%. The panel suggested further highlighting of innovations and better summarization of obtained results centering on respective subject objectives. This consultation meeting has laid a solid foundation for future report improvement and performance evaluation.