Natural rivers usually possess sand waves and sand bars. In this article, the rapid distortion theory was used to study the turbulent flow over sand waves. The results show that the pre-existing shearing motion and upstream anisotropy of the turbulence flow would have significant effect on the turbulent structures, and hence the memory effect should be taken into consideration. Furthermore, the 2-D mathematical model was employed to simulate the unsteady flow around the Taiping Sand Bar in the lower reach of the Yangtze River and the time step effect on the unsteady flow simulation with the implicit scheme was discussed at the same time. The results show that the implicit scheme keeps effective until the time step reaches a certain number, and the calculated water levels and velocities are in agreement with the observed data.