Innovation and Practice of High-Quality Navigation of the Three Gorges-Gezhouba Cascade Hub in 20 Years

As the navigation design capacity of the Three Gorges-Gezhouba cascade hub has been gradually saturated and the volume of transiting cargo has increased rapidly in the past two decades, it is necessary to adopt advanced information technologies to improve the navigation capacity and promote the high-quality navigation of the Three Gorges.This study aims to investigate the technical system and its engineering application for the high-quality navigation of the Three Gorges-Gezhouba cascade project, and involves the aspects of current situation analysis, technical system construction, implementation results, existing bottlenecks, and follow-up development measures.The study reviews the research status of cascade hubs in China and abroad and explores the major factors affecting the high-quality navigation of the Three Gorges, namely navigation equipment, traffic organization, safety assurance, environmental improvement, and environmental-friendly maintenance.The technical system is also built.The innovative development and practice of the Three Gorges-Gezhouba cascade hub over the past 20 years are summarized from the aspects of intelligent operation, navigation organization, safety assurance, channel capacity, and green navigation.Moreover, the medium-and long-term suggestions are proposed for the intelligent and green navigation of the Gorges-Gezhouba cascade hub focusing on the major bottlenecks.