The study looked at how the amount of water and sediment flowing into the Yichang hydrometric station changed over time due to various projects on the Yangtze River. They found that the yearly sediment runoff decreased significantly after certain projects were built, with a reduction of 61.4% by 2003-2004. The researchers also predicted that the sediment runoff would continue to decrease in the future, reaching 1.02×10^8t/a from 2003 to 2012 and 0.534×10^8t/a from 2013 to 2022.