Dredging simulation experiments were carried out using a general cutter, a housing-general cutter, a spiral cutter, and a housing-spiral cutter, in order to study the change of contaminant concentration in overlying water and compare the environmental performance of cutters with different structures. The results were as follows: dredging with the spiral cutter, the amount of released sediment contaminants was less than that with the general cutter; dredging with both the spiral cutter and the general cutter equipped with housings could effectively reduce the amount of released sediment contaminants, particularly the amount of released nutrient nitrogen one hour after dredging; and the ideal transformation scheme for a cutter suction dredger(CSD)in terms of its environment-friendly function is dredging with a spiral cutter equipped with an anti-diffusion device(housing).