Abstract: The Lower Yangtze River is the typical anabranching channel, where the head of mid-channel bars are facing the seriously scouring situation under the impact of the sediment-starved flow, e.g., Tiebanzhou Island in the Datong reach. Water-sediment temporal change, area of Tiebanzhou Island, sediment deposition of bar head, and hydrodynamic characteristics (MIKE 21 model) were analyzed using the hydrological data of the Datong station (1956-2014), remote sensing imagery (1998-2016), channel topography (2004-2011). From 2003 to 2014, the mean annual runoff in the Datong station did not change much, but the mean annual sediment load decreased by 67.4%. The Tiebanzhou Island was eroded by the sediment-starved flow in the long-term, i.e., the volume of the bar head eroded from 1,635,700 m3 in 2004 to 688,400 m3 in 2011, and the average erosion rate from 8.88% in 2004-2008 increased to 11.57% in 2008-2011. The hydrodynamic simulation demonstrated that the greater incoming discharge, the strong scouring effect on the bar head, i.e., the erosion in flood seasons stronger than that in non-flood seasons. Owing to the backward slope and blocking effect on the upstream of bar head, the flow velocity decreases along the upper segment of the bar head, and sharply drops to zero when the flow is approaching the front of the bar head. The maximum velocity appears on the left side of the bar head that leads to the left side as the main erosion area.