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Based on experiment in tidal flume, this paper analyzes the sediment rarefactive phenomenon and hydraulic characteristics of sediment resuspension with different physical properties under the effect of tidal current. According to this experiment, sediment resuspension is related to the hydraulic characteristics of overlying water and its own dry density, namely the moisture content of sediment and deposition time. Generally, river sediment can be classified into the upper layer of floating sludge and lower layer of deposit sediment. Incipient velocity goes higher as the sediment layer goes thicker. Based on the experiment, incipient velocity formula of sediment can be obtained. There is a cohesive force among natural fine sediment whose resuspension is almost irrelevant to their diameters. Therefore, the critical incipient velocity is determined by the cohesive force instead of particle diameter. The lower layer of deposit sediment is generally not so easy to start up. And it will be rarified and release into the overlying water when contacting with overlying water. However, this rarefaction release velocity is gentle and slow. Under the same flow condition, annual loss amount of lower layer deposited sediment is about one fifth of upper layer of floating sediment. Flow velocity of tidal river and variation of the water level are asymmetrical, both of which vary under different tidal cycles. During long tidal cycle, flow velocity and water level change in the same phase and amplitude with tide. During the whole ebb and flow, flow direction does not change as the water level goes under the influence of acceleration and deceleration. As the tide cycle increases, the incipient velocity of sediment goes higher. This means that the long period tide cycle plays buffer effect on the resuspension of sediment, which makes the sediment not so easy both to start up and to suspend.

Hydrodynamic effects play a very important role in the contaminants release from sediments. Experiments were performed to study contaminants releasing characteristics due to resuspension. The time-dependent variation of COD concentration and relative roles under static and dynamic state of the overlying water were analyzed. Experimental results showed that COD concentration in the water column got a striking increment on the dynamic conditions, mainly by reducing the thickness of concentration boundary layer near sediment-water interface and destructing the surface structure of sediment. Hydrodynamics increased contaminants release rates and flux in unit time. Before reaching an equilibrium stage, the dynamic release caused by the resuspension was more effective than static one due to molecular diffusion. The release rate of COD increased with flow velocity and decreased with water depth. But at a shallow water depth, wave effects would dominate the causing resuspension, resulting in contaminants release in large quantity. The intensity of pollutant release increased with time in a rather circuitous process. The diffusion of pollutant from internal sediment to the sediment-water interface would maintain the endogenous release effects.

Contaminant release from bottom sediments in rivers is one of the main problems to study the environmental hydrodynamics. Contaminant will release into the overlying water column under different hydrodynamic conditions through pore-water in sediment, the release mechanism can be roughly divided into convection diffusion, molecular diffusion and adsorption/desorption. In this article, phosphorus was as a typical contaminant with sorption. Through theoretical analysis of the contaminant release, according to different particle-sized and hydraulic conditions, the mathematics model of contaminant release can be established by the coupled Navier-Stokes equation, Darcy equation, solute transport equation and adsorption/desorption equation. Then that model was verified by flume experiment. Numerical studies show that, under different velocity, the instantaneous concentration of convection diffusion is about 6 times to 50 times larger than that of molecular diffusion during initial stages. The concentration of molecular diffusion is about 1 times to 4 times larger than to that of convection diffusion during late stages. Through analysis, the diffusive boundary layer near the interface can be obtained. In addition, the release will increase with particle size decreasing, and the release will be influenced much more by the size change when the particle size is relatively big under different velocity.