The waveguide invariant β is affected by the shallow-water environment. The effect due to bottom sediment on β is investigated in this paper. It is found that the effect of sediment bottom can be concentrated on one parameter P-the bottom reflection phase-shift parameter. For a Pekeris waveguide, under Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) approximation, a very simple analytic relation is given: β ≈ 1 + P/(k(0)H(eff)), where H(eff) is the "effective depth," and H(eff) = H + P/2 k(0). The value of β related to different high-speed sediments (including layered sediment) ranges from 1.0 to 1.5. Some numerical examples including the layered sediment case are conducted to verify this result. Good agreement between the results calculated by KRAKEN and by WKB with parameter P has been found. Hence, the application of parameter P provides a model-free platform to investigate the bottom effect on the waveguide invariant β in shallow-water.