Response time of global deltas to changes in fluvial sediment supply

Jie Wang, Zhijun Dai (), Xuefei Mei, Huan-Feng Duan and Jaap H. Nienhuis ()
Additional contact information
Jie Wang: East China Normal University
Zhijun Dai: East China Normal University
Xuefei Mei: East China Normal University
Huan-Feng Duan: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Jaap H. Nienhuis: Utrecht University

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Fluvial sediment supply supports global delta growth, yet the relationship between these two key variables remains difficult to verify for modern river deltas. Part of the complication might be that deltas are slow to adjust to changes in fluvial sediment supply. To test this hypothesis, here we analyze yearly time series of fluvial sediment supply and delta land area changes for 60 major deltas through 1990–2020. Cross-correlations show that, globally averaged, changes in delta growth rate lag 6 years behind fluctuations in fluvial sediment supply. For the 24 deltas with increased sediment supply, the lag time of land change rates was reduced to 1 year; while the 36 deltas supplied with lower fluvial sediment loads lagged by 6 years. High sediment availability in river-dominated deltas leads to a quicker response of delta land area to upstream supply changes, and deltas with stronger tidal dominance have a subdued response with long lag times. Our findings here highlight the high vulnerability of deltas and their ecosystems to changing external drivers.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-60531-9 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-60531-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-60531-9

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().