Global rates and patterns of channel migration in river deltas.

River deltas are dynamic systems whose channels can widen, narrow, migrate, avulse, and bifurcate to form new channel networks through time. With hundreds of millions of people living on these globally ubiquitous systems, it is critically important to understand and predict how delta channel networks will evolve over time. Although much work has been done to understand drivers of channel migration on the individual channel scale, a global-scale analysis of the current state of delta morphological change has not been attempted.

System wide channel network analysis reveals hotspots of morphological change in anthropogenically modified regions of the Ganges Delta.

The Ganges Brahmaputra Meghna Delta (GBMD) is a large and complex coastal system whose channel network is vulnerable to morphological changes caused by sea level rise, subsidence, anthropogenic modifications, and changes to water and sediment loads. Locating and characterizing change is particularly challenging because of the wide range of forcings acting on the GBMD and because of the large range of scales over which these forcings act. In this study, we examine the spatial variability of change in the GBMD channel network.