The River and Harbor Engineering Department, founded in 1956, is the earliest one in China to conduct model tests on tides, waves, river dynamics and sedimentation, and the first one to perform model tests on irregular waves, flood prevention in unsteady flow areas, sedimentation, pollution and diffusion in tidal rivers. The Department is the pioneer in conducting the all-load model test and the turbid water and movable bed sediment test under the co-action of waves and tides. It is of high level in sediment motion laws, physical model similarity theories and test techniques, etc., and its prominent representatives in the river and coastal engineering field are Prof. Yan Kai and Prof. Dou Guoren, academicians of Chinese Academy of Sciences. The Department has a total staff of 90, including 18 professor-level senior engineers, 35 senior engineers and 6 tutors for doctoral students. The administrative offices of the Chinese Ocean Engineering Society, the Engineering Technology Committee of Jiangsu Oceanology and Limnology Society, the Port and Waterway Committee of Jiangsu Hydraulic Engineering Society, and the Key Lab of Port, Waterway and Sedimentation Engineering of the Ministry of Communications of China as well as the editorial departments for The Ocean Engineering and China Ocean Engineering are stationed in the Department. Approved by the State Academic Degrees Office of China, the Department can confer doctorate and master degrees of hydraulics, river dynamics and port, coastal and offshore engineering. A national post-doctorate working station of hydraulic engineering has been established in the Department.

Areas of Interest:
◆Basic theories of sediment movement;
◆River dynamics and principles of river training;
◆Estuary and coast dynamics and environmental engineering;
◆Integrated improvement of rivers, estuaries and coasts;
◆Coastal harbors and offshore engineering;
◆Experimental hydraulics and simulation technology.

Test Halls and Equipment:
The Department has a total area of about 90,000m2 with 26 large-size laboratories and test halls for various physical model tests, including Inland Waterway Model Test Hall, Estuary Model Test Hall, Coast and Harbor Model Test Hall, Wave Basin Test Hall, Sediment Test Hall for Water Control Projects, Test Hall for Basic Sediment Law, etc, all equipped with computer-controlled systems, such as water circulation systems, tidal generating systems, combined generating systems of wave, tide and wind, data acquisition and processing systems, and advanced irregular wave generating systems. It possesses a large number of advanced instruments and equipment for wave, flow and sediment measurement, wave flumes, a tilting flume, unsteady flow flumes, wave basins, irregular wave generators and tidal generators.

Research Missions:
The Department has undertaken hundreds of national and ministerial key research programs and planning projects, including scientific experiments and researches for large water conservancy, hydropower and waterway transportation projects, such as the Gezhouba Project, the Three-Gorge Project, the Xiaolangdi Project, etc., and for large river estuary training projects in the Yangtze River, the Haihe River, the Pearl River, the Yalujiang River and the Oujiang River, for flood control planning of the Huaihe River Basin, for navigation channel improvement projects in the Yangtze River, the Hanjiang River, the Xiangjiang River, the Xijiang River, the Songhuajiang River and the LiujiaXia Project in the Yellow River, for the nuclear and thermal power plants in Qinshan, Lingao, Lianyungang, Shantou, Haikou, Zhangzhou and Sheyang, for harbor and port projects of Dandong Port, Jinzhou Port, Jingtang Port, Caofeidian Port, Tianjin New Port, Huanghua Port, Qingdao Port, Shijiu Port, Liuyungang Port, Nanjing Port, Shanghai Port, Nantong Port, Beilun Port, Wenzhou Port, Xiamen Port, Shantou Port, Guangzhou Port, Chiwan Port, Zhuhai Port, Fangcheng Port and Haikou Port, and for coastal protection, beach control and reclamation projects in Zhejiang Province and Jiangsu Province. In addition, it has undertaken some international research projects in South Korea, Mauritania, Nepal and Malaysia. In regard of research and application of numerical simulation technology, the Department has developed 2D suspended sediment numerical model, bed load numerical model, 3D tidal all-load sediment numerical model, and integrated computational model of refraction and diffraction of waves in the large sea areas. Many well-known scholars and experienced engineering technicians in sediment research field have been trained. The Department has won 3 National Science and Technology Prizes, 2 Chinese National Scientific Progress Prizes (one is the Top Grade Prize, and the other is the First Grade Prize), 1 National Natural Science Prize (Second Grade Prize), 42 Chinese Ministerial and Provincial Scientific Progress Prizes (including 2 Top Grade Prizes, 12 First Grade Prizes, 12 Second Grade Prizes, and 16 Third Grade Prizes), Qianning Sediment Prize and Yan Kai Hydropower Engineering Prize, etc.