The relationship between hydrodynamic forces and sediment characteristics in Baltimore Harbor, USA, was examined by comparing estimated wave-induced bottom shear stresses with sediment mud content distributions. Wave fields in the bay area were simulated for arbitrary wind fields using HISWA, a numerical wave hindcasting model, which provided spatial distributions of wave-induced bottom shear stresses.By considering the wind statistics from a long-term data set collected near the harbor, a probability distribution of the strass value at each point was obtained. Results indicate that a relatively high negative correlation exists between the average shear stress, i.e., the mean value of the probability distribution, and sediment mud content for the sampling locations. It was also found that a newly introduced index called the deposition probabulity index, which is a modified probability of depositional condition by considering the so-caued probability of deposition defined as a function of bottom shear stress, can clearly indicate the mud content characteristics of the sediments in the harbor.