The Zhanjiang Bay can be regarded as a tidal inlet system of drowned valley lagoon type. The authors discussed emphatically the relationship between fill blocking the waters and response of the tidal inlet system

and pointed out that the encirclement of the “Nansan Islands” by embankments in 1958 expanded the area of tidal waters and improved the tidal inlet conditions. But the fill block engineering in the past years had also caused the deposit in some sections of navigable course

and washout or piling up of mud sand on shores. It’s thought that the protection and expansion of tidal waters in the system’ is a key to the system’s stability.