Research on the Impact of Gate Engineering on Seawater Exchange Capacity

Over the past two decades, extensive coastal development in China has led to numerous small-scale enclosed coastal water bodies. Due to complex shoreline geometries, these areas suffer from disturbed hydrodynamic conditions, weak water exchange, which quickly leads to sediment accumulation, and difficulty maintaining ecological water levels, posing serious environmental threats. Enhancing seawater exchange capacity and achieving coordinated optimization of exchange efficiency and ecological water level are critical prerequisites for the environmental restoration of eutrophic enclosed coastal areas. This study takes the Ligao Block in Tianjin as a case study and proposes a real-time sluice gate regulation scheme. By incorporating hydrodynamic conditions, engineering layout, and present characteristics of the benthic substrate environment, the number, width, location, and operation modes of sluice gates are optimized to maximize water exchange efficiency while maintaining natural flow patterns. The result of the numerical simulation of hydrodynamic exchange and intelligent optimization analysis reveals that the optimal sluice gate operation strategy should be tailored to regional tidal flow characteristics and substrate conditions. Through intelligent scheduling of exchange sluice gates, systematic gate parameter optimization, and active control of gate opening, this approach achieves intelligent seawater exchange, optimized flow dynamics, active exchange, and sustained ecological water levels in enclosed coastal water bodies.