More information: Roeland C. van de Vijsel et al, Tipping points in river deltas, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s43017-024-00610-5 Provided by Wageningen University ...

Of nearly 1.5 million of the smallest, upstream rivers on Earth, 17% of rivers saw a 1-5% increase in streamflow (blue) while 9.9% saw a decrease (red) over 35 years.

This is the delta where the Colorado River meets the ocean, or rather, what's left of it. Since the early 1960s, one of America's great waterways almost never actually reaches the sea.

Worldwide, coastal river deltas are home to more than half a billion people, supporting fisheries, agriculture, cities, and fertile ecosystems. In a unique study covering 49 deltas globally ...

Just as water moves through a river, rivers themselves move across the landscape. They carve valleys and canyons, create floodplains and deltas, and transport sediment from the uplands to the ocean.

On Thursday, government officials from the local, state and federal levels congregated to divert the Provo River into a new delta, sending the water toward Utah Lake.

As rivers chew their way across the landscape, they naturally wander — especially in their relatively flat deltas, where sediments can pile up and divert the river one way or another (SN: 4/1/14).

Previous attempts to quantify changes in rivers over time have only looked at specific outlet reaches or a rear basin part of a river, explains Dongmei Feng, lead author, assistant professor at ...