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Sinking deltas due to human activites

Sinking deltas due to human activites
Sinking deltas due to human activites
Many of the world's largest deltas are densely populated and heavily farmed. Yet many of their inhabitants are becoming increasingly vulnerable to flooding and conversions of their land to open ocean. The vulnerability is a result of sediment compaction from the removal of oil, gas and water from the delta's underlying sediments, the trapping of sediment in reservoirs upstream and floodplain engineering in combination with rising global sea level. Here we present an assessment of 33 deltas chosen to represent the world's deltas. We find that in the past decade, 85% of the deltas experienced severe flooding, resulting in the temporary submergence of 260,000 km2. We conservatively estimate that the delta surface area vulnerable to flooding could increase by 50% under the current projected values for sea-level rise in the twenty-first century. This figure could increase if the capture of sediment upstream persists and continues to prevent the growth and buffering of the deltas
1752-0894
681-689
Syvitski, James P.M.
e65f24d5-2e05-4632-bdc5-beb77ce09cb2
Kettner, Albert J.
93fe4d32-6751-464e-b633-117fc8575125
Overeem, Irena
c02a6ba1-21ba-411f-a522-45ce152d4290
Hutton, Eric W. H.
26536e07-32a9-481e-8428-e96bc1c81bb6
Hannon, Mark T.
9c7bfb08-7db0-4574-839e-eeb4350ecc00
Brakenridge, G. Robert
a83c02e1-49c2-4646-897b-a56f2f8a885e
Day, John
70e01bf9-82c7-4a22-9985-ab8cff203f86
Vörösmarty, Charles
d04f637a-c8fa-42a4-93f9-7713ac3a04e2
Saito, Yoshiko
4521686e-fa7b-44ef-857d-c4fa83d6706b
Giosan, Liviu
46802e93-8a58-4660-b2d3-fdd5dfe100b8
Nicholls, Robert J.
4ce1e355-cc5d-4702-8124-820932c57076
Syvitski, James P.M.
e65f24d5-2e05-4632-bdc5-beb77ce09cb2
Kettner, Albert J.
93fe4d32-6751-464e-b633-117fc8575125
Overeem, Irena
c02a6ba1-21ba-411f-a522-45ce152d4290
Hutton, Eric W. H.
26536e07-32a9-481e-8428-e96bc1c81bb6
Hannon, Mark T.
9c7bfb08-7db0-4574-839e-eeb4350ecc00
Brakenridge, G. Robert
a83c02e1-49c2-4646-897b-a56f2f8a885e
Day, John
70e01bf9-82c7-4a22-9985-ab8cff203f86
Vörösmarty, Charles
d04f637a-c8fa-42a4-93f9-7713ac3a04e2
Saito, Yoshiko
4521686e-fa7b-44ef-857d-c4fa83d6706b
Giosan, Liviu
46802e93-8a58-4660-b2d3-fdd5dfe100b8
Nicholls, Robert J.
4ce1e355-cc5d-4702-8124-820932c57076

Syvitski, James P.M., Kettner, Albert J., Overeem, Irena, Hutton, Eric W. H., Hannon, Mark T., Brakenridge, G. Robert, Day, John, Vörösmarty, Charles, Saito, Yoshiko, Giosan, Liviu and Nicholls, Robert J. (2009) Sinking deltas due to human activites. Nature Geoscience, 2 (10), 681-689. (doi:10.1038/ngeo629).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Many of the world's largest deltas are densely populated and heavily farmed. Yet many of their inhabitants are becoming increasingly vulnerable to flooding and conversions of their land to open ocean. The vulnerability is a result of sediment compaction from the removal of oil, gas and water from the delta's underlying sediments, the trapping of sediment in reservoirs upstream and floodplain engineering in combination with rising global sea level. Here we present an assessment of 33 deltas chosen to represent the world's deltas. We find that in the past decade, 85% of the deltas experienced severe flooding, resulting in the temporary submergence of 260,000 km2. We conservatively estimate that the delta surface area vulnerable to flooding could increase by 50% under the current projected values for sea-level rise in the twenty-first century. This figure could increase if the capture of sediment upstream persists and continues to prevent the growth and buffering of the deltas

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Published date: October 2009
Organisations: Civil Engineering & the Environment

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 73761
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/73761
ISSN: 1752-0894
PURE UUID: f4412d1d-ee3a-4cbd-9765-821c373505f8
ORCID for Robert J. Nicholls: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-9715-1109

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Date deposited: 11 Mar 2010
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 02:48

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Contributors

Author: James P.M. Syvitski
Author: Albert J. Kettner
Author: Irena Overeem
Author: Eric W. H. Hutton
Author: Mark T. Hannon
Author: G. Robert Brakenridge
Author: John Day
Author: Charles Vörösmarty
Author: Yoshiko Saito
Author: Liviu Giosan

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