River Delta Morphotypes Emerge From Multiscale Characterization of Shorelines
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- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of California Irvine CA Irvine USA, Earth and Environmental Sciences Division Los Alamos National Laboratory NM Los Alamos USA
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of California Irvine CA Irvine USA, Department of Science and Engineering Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi United Arab Emirates, Institute for Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems University of Zaragoza Zaragoza Spain
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of California Irvine CA Irvine USA, State Key Laboratory of Hydroscience and Engineering Tsinghua University Beijing China
- Department of Physical Geography Utrecht University Utrecht The Netherlands
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of California Irvine CA Irvine USA
- Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Indiana University IN Bloomington USA
- Earth and Environmental Sciences Division Los Alamos National Laboratory NM Los Alamos USA
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering University of California Irvine CA Irvine USA, Department of Earth System Science University of California Irvine CA Irvine USA
Abstract Delta shoreline structure has long been hypothesized to encode information on the relative influence of fluvial, wave, and tidal processes on delta formation and evolution. We introduce here a novel multiscale characterization of shorelines by defining three process‐informed morphological metrics. We show that this characterization yields self‐emerging classes of morphologically similar deltas, that is, delta morphotypes, and also predicts the dominant forcing of each morphotype. Then we show that the dominant forcings inferred from shoreline structure generally align with those estimated via relative sediment fluxes, while positing that misalignments arise from spatiotemporal heterogeneity in deltaic sediment fluxes not captured in their estimates. The proposed framework for shoreline characterization advances our quantitative understanding of how shoreline features reflect delta forcings, and may aid in deciphering paleoclimate from images of ancient deposits and projecting delta morphologic response to changes in sediment fluxes.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- OSTI ID:
- 1968537
- Journal Information:
- Geophysical Research Letters, Journal Name: Geophysical Research Letters Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 50; ISSN 0094-8276
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union (AGU)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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