The capacity of wireless mesh networks can be significantly improved by multi-channel communications；channel assignment is an important issue in multi-channel Mesh network. We propose a novel distributed channel assignment algorithm CBLA（Cluster-Based Load-Aware）

which takes advantage of both static and dynamic channel assignment approaches. CBLA uses clustering to reduce the complexity of channel assignment problem

estimates the traffic load by low-overhead statistic information of local packets. Adaptive dynamic channel assignment results in a better link load equilibrium. We also introduce a new routing metric

which combines hop count

channel diversity and cluster information together. A detailed performance evaluation shows that CBLA significantly improves aggregated throughput and reduces average packet delay.