ENGINEERING EVALUATION OF THE ARTIFICIAL BEACH ON MUDDY COAST: A CASE FROM BIHAI SILVER SAND BEACH OF QIDONG

The Qidong City is located on the north side of the North Branch of the Yangtze River Estuary near the Qidongzui. It is a typical silty and muddy coast. Under the joint influence of the Yangtze River current, sea storm surge and tidal current, the geological background of the coast is rather complex. It is dominated by an intertidal zone and a related underwater delta resulted from the interaction of land and sea. Its geological conditions are in fact not favored to the development of beach tourism projects. Since the construction of the artificial sand beach on the mud bank started in 2011, the Evergrande Sea Venice Bihai Silver sand beach project has been successfully completed with a sea enclosure of 7.23 km², and a beach length of 3.5 km by damming and sand filtering. In fact, prior to the successful construction of the project, several man-made beaches had been built in China, such as the Jinshan City beach in Shanghai, the Dongjiang bathing beach in Tianjin, and the Yangzi man-made beach in Weifang. Based on the successful experiences in previous projects, combined with its geological conditions, we carefully summarized the Qidong case for a set of engineering and technical guidelines suitable for its own, such as making the sea a lake, blowing sand for water purification, construction of sediment barrier and mud prevention net and so on, which provide good references for similar projectsin other places.