Abstract: With the acceleration of the “eastward migration of the coastline” process in the Qing Dynasty,the environmental changes in the mouth of the Yangtze River estuary were significant,and the interaction between runoff and tidal currents caused the collapse and instability of sandbars along the Changshu section of Jiangyin until the end of the Qing Dynasty.The sandbars in the Changshu section of Jiangyin at the mouth of the Yangtze River showed a large area of siltation and relatively stable state from the late Qing Dynasty to the early Republic of China,and gradually showed a trend of merging towards the south bank.At first,most of the cultivators on sandbars relied on land reclamation to maintain their basic livelihoods.However,due to the poor ability of sandbars to resist natural and man-made disasters,coupled with relatively weak official administrative intervention,sandbar residents embarked on a path to achieve more comprehensive development of sandbars through commercialized agricultural production and the expansion and cooperation of different sidelines.