The Key Lab of Port, Waterway and Sedimentation Engineering of the Ministry of Transport was approved by the Ministry of Communications in 1999. Based on the River and Harbour Engineering Department of Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute, researches of river, estuary and coast dynamics, regulation technology of navigation channels and interaction among wave, structure and foundation have been carried out in the Lab.

There are 42 researchers in the Lab, among which 18 staff are professors and 17 senior engineers. The Lab is qualified to confer Doctorate and Master Degrees of 2 disciplines, i.e. hydraulics and river dynamics, and port, coast and offshore engineering. There are 13 doctors and 21 masters graduated from the Lab, and 12 doctor and 9 master candidates under education.

There are 22 large test halls with a total area of 70,000 m2 affiliated to the Lab. It is the largest one of current similar domestic labs with complete self-developed instrumentations and facilities of long wind-wave-tide-current flume, wave flume, tilting flume, non-steady flow flume, wave basin, irregular wave generation systems in flume and basin, large tidal generation system, turbid movable bed test and monitoring system, automatic control and data acquisition system in flume, automatic sand-feeding monitoring system of turbid model, in-situ multiple-function fixed-point observation system, large flow rate two-way pump with low water head, multiple-function intelligent velocity meter, intelligent sediment particle measuring instrument and flow velocity and direction meter. The Lab also possesses advanced 3D ADV and 2D magnetic velocimeter for wave, current and sediment measurement.

The Lab mainly undertakes the researches of sedimentation in port and waterway engineering. It is the first one to perform model researches of irregular waves, full load model test, turbid water and movable bed sediment model test under the co-action of wave and tide as well as 2D full load mathematical model. It has undertaken more than 600 scientific research projects since 2000, including sedimentation studies of many key hydraulic and port projects, such as the Gezhouba Project, the dam site and back water zone of the Three-Gorge Project, the Huanghua Port, the Beilun Port, the Shantou Port, the Xiamen Port, the Jingtang Port, the Caofeidian Port, the Yantian Port, the Dandong Port, the Jinzhou Port, the Lianyungang Port, the Dafeng Port, the Binhai Port, the Shanghai Port, the Guangzhou Port, the Fangcheng Port and the Friendship Port in Mauritania, and navigation channel regulation projects in the Yangtze River, the Qiantangjiang River, the Oujiang River, the Pearl River, the Hanjiang River, the Songhuajiang River and the Xiangjiang River. Research findings have been adopted with great economic and social benefits. Studies on navigation condition, bridge pier scouring and flood control impacts have been carried out for the Sutong Yangtze River Bridge, the Nanjing Third Yangtze River Bridge, the Nanjing Fourth Yangtze River Bridge, the North Branch Bridge and South Branch River Channel of the Hu-Chong-Su Passage, the Gang-Zhu-Ao Bridge, the Runyang Yangtze River Bridge, and the Chonghai Yangtze River Bridge with study findings adopted by the design and construction departments. Relevant researches won 1 First Prize of the National Scientific and Technological Progress, 2 Special Prizes and 5 Fist Prizes of Scientific and Technological Progress at ministerial or provincial level.