Abstract: In former researches about wakes flow,the length scale in the spanwise direction of the wake generator is usually very large.While the wake flows in natural environments and hydraulic projects are often very shallow,compared with the horizontal dimension.Because of the limits of the bottom and side walls,the shallow wakes have some special characteristics.The digital particle image velocimetry (DPIV) is employed to study the flow field around a solid plate in shallow water.The experiments are carried out in a flume with 30 m long,3.5m wide and 1m deep.The movement of large-scale vortex is analyzed.The changes of flow pattern with wake stability parameter are investigated.Such large-scale quantitative experimental study on shallow wakes can rarely be found in literature.