Transport in Deltas

Examples of the ‘natural’, ‘dredged’, and ‘poldered’ topographies generated to simulate different topographic modifications.

We simulate the transport of material through numerically simulated river deltas under natural and human-modified (embankment construction and channel dredging) scenarios to understand their impacts on material transport. Human modifications reduce the total area visited by passive particles and alter the amount of time spent within the delta relative to natural conditions. This work can help us understand how future construction may impact land building or ecosystem restoration projects.

This project utilized the pyDeltaRCM and dorado models, as well as the ANUGA hydrodynamic model, and was conducted with help from a number of colleagues at The University of Texas at Austin.

Examples of 10 particle trajectories across each of the different topographies.

Publications

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Hariharan, J., Wright, K., Moodie, A., Tull, N., & Passalacqua, P. (2023), Impacts of human modifications on material transport in deltas, Earth Surf. Dynam., 11, 405-427, https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-11-405-2023