Abstract: With the global climate warming, extreme climate events have been frequent in recent years, accompanied by sea level rise and intensified storm surges in coastal areas. Under such background, innovating the structural form of storm surge barrier, which is an important barrier for urban safety of coastal cities, and improving the flood control capacity of coastal cities have been hot spot for scientific researchers. In this paper, the necessity of storm surge barriers construction is expounded from the impact of coastal flooding on coastal city safety; the innovative structural features, advantages and shortcomings, applicability and development status of various large-scale tidal gates are illustrated according to some engineering application examples of large-span new storm surge barriers built in coastal areas at home and abroad. Finally, prospects are drawn from the aspects of ecological construction of coastal cities, design and specification of new tidal gates, and control of operation management systems. The research is expected to provide reference for the construction of storm surge barriers in the coastal estuary area of China.

Key words: storm surge barriers, climate change, coastal flood, engineering application, new structural form