Optimal control problems related to the navigation channel engineering

The navigation channel engineering poses optimal control problems of how to find the optimal way of engineering such that the water depth of the channel is maximum under certain budget constraint, or the cost of the engineering is minimum while certain goals are achieved. These are typical control problems of distributed system governed by hydraulic/sedimentation models. The problems and methods of solutions are discussed. Since the models, usually complicated, are nonlinear, they can be solved by solving a series of linear problems. For linear problems the solutions are given. Thus the algorithms are simplified.