Aiming at the lack of information transfer among the traditional design processes of inland waterway dredging engineering,we propose the BIM forward design idea of inland waterway dredging engineering through comprehensive analysis of the Civil 3D characteristics and special requirements of design,establish the BIM forward design method of inland waterway dredging engineering based on Civil 3D,and improve some of the functions of dredging engineering quantity output and batch drawing during the design processes through secondary development.The results show the BIM forward design method is applied to the dredging project of Modaomen waterway,which effectively improves the design efficiency.It can provide references for the similar projects.