Global climate change and human activities have important effects on the water discharge and sediment load of the Pearl River. In this study, the water discharge and sediment load were investigated by using hydro-meteorological data from 1954 to 2018. The linear regression, Mann–Kendall abrupt test and double mass curve were employed to detect trends and abrupt change-points in water discharge and sediment load and to quantify the effects of climate change and human activities on water discharge and sediment load. The results revealed that the annual sediment load exhibited a significant decreasing trend at a rate of − 2.24 × 10⁴ t/year, regardless of water discharge, and an abrupt change occurred in 1998. Human activities, especially dam construction contributed 96% to this change, while 4% was due to climate change. El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events are often associated with low precipitation, resulting in low water discharge and sediment load, indicating that changes in ENSO periodicity could affect the inter-annual periodic variations of water discharge and sediment load. As population and economy boom, more dams are being built in the Pearl River basin, and special attention should be paid to the management and mitigation of the effects of dams on sediment load.

The evolution of the Pearl River Estuary (PRE), China in recent decades has been dominated by human activities. Historical admiralty charts and remote sensing images indicated that from 1936 to 2017, the tidal flat area and water area decreased by 23.6 × 10⁷ m² and 60.7 × 10⁷ m², respectively. The average advancing rate of the coastline of the PRE to the sea from 1972 to 2017 reached approximately 64.8 m/year, which is several times or even dozens of times that since the mid-Holocene. Land reclamation was the main reason for the dramatic changes in the water area and coastline. Although the water volume of the PRE showed a decreasing trend from 1936 to 2017, the water volume reduction rates for 1996–2005 and 2005–2017 were only 29% (1.27 × 10⁷ m³/year) and 12% (0.53 × 10⁷ m³/year), respectively, of that for 1936–1972. The combined influences of channel dredging, sand mining, and sediment load reduction caused by dam construction have contributed to this change. From the perspective of the filling up of the estuary, channel dredging, sand mining, and dam construction in the river basin are beneficial for prolonging the life of the estuary.

Based on field observation at the north coast of the Zhanjiang Bay in southern China, the characteristics of wave attenuation due to the drag force of one mangrove species, Avicennia marina (Forsk.) Viern., were quantitatively analyzed. The results demonstrated that the mean significant wave height decreased by ~62% within a forest belt up to 80 m due to various bio-physical interactions. Affected by the unique vertical configuration of vegetation, the wave attenuation rate is positively correlated with water depth. The drag force within the forest can be approximated by the function $C_d=0.7344e^{0.1409A_m}$, where A_m is the projected area of the submerged obstacle at a certain water depth. The wave attenuation rate and the vegetation density (ρ_veg) in volume (‰) satisfy the fitting relationship of $r=5\times {10}^{-4}·{\rho }_{veg}-3.6\times {10}^{-3}$. These findings can accumulate quantitative information for studying the influence of mangrove vegetation on wave attenuation characteristics and provide necessary basic data for modeling studies to investigate the processes contributing to the attenuation capacity of mangroves.