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Ruiz-Villanueva V, Piégay H, Scorpio V, Bachmann A, Brousse G, Cavalli M, Comiti F, Crema S, Fernández E, Furdada G, Hajdukiewicz H, Hunzinger L, Lucía A, Marchi L, Moraru A, Piton G, Rickenmann D, Righini M, Surian N, Yassine R, Wyżga B. River widening in mountain and foothill areas during floods: Insights from a meta-analysis of 51 European Rivers. THE SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT 2023; 903:166103. [PMID: 37558069 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166103] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/22/2023] [Revised: 07/17/2023] [Accepted: 08/05/2023] [Indexed: 08/11/2023]
Abstract
River widening, defined as a lateral expansion of the channel, is a critical process that maintains fluvial ecosystems and is part of the regular functioning of rivers. However, in areas with high population density, channel widening can cause damage during floods. Therefore, for effective flood risk management it is essential to identify river reaches where abrupt channel widening may occur. Despite numerous efforts to predict channel widening, most studies have been limited to single rivers and single flood events, which may not be representative of other conditions. Moreover, a multi-catchment scale approach that covers various settings and flood magnitudes has been lacking. In this study, we fill this gap by compiling a large database comprising 1564 river reaches in several mountain regions in Europe affected by floods of varying magnitudes in the last six decades. By applying a meta-analysis, we aimed to identify the types of floods responsible for more extensive widening, the river reach types where intense widening is more likely to occur, and the hydraulic and morphological variables that explain widening and can aid in predicting widening. Our analysis revealed seven groups of reaches with significantly different responses to floods regarding width ratios (i.e., the ratio between channel width after and before a flood). Among these groups, the river reaches located in the Mediterranean region and affected by extreme floods triggered by short and intense precipitation events showed significantly larger widening than other river reaches in other regions. Additionally, the meta-analysis confirmed valley confinement as a critical morphological variable that controls channel widening but showed that it is not the only controlling factor. We proposed new statistical models to identify river reaches prone to widening, estimate potential channel width after a flood, and compute upper bound width ratios. These findings can inform flood hazard evaluations and the design of mitigation measures.
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Affiliation(s)
- V Ruiz-Villanueva
- University of Lausanne, Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics (IDYST), Geopolis, UNIL-Mouline, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
| | - H Piégay
- École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, (ENS), France, Environment City Society (EVS) Research unit, UMR 5600, 15 parvis René Descartes, 69342 Lyon, France
| | - Vittoria Scorpio
- Department of Chemical and Geological Sciences, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena, Italy
| | | | - Guillaume Brousse
- EDF - R&D - LNHE - 6 Quai Watier, Chatou/Laboratoire d'Hydraulique Saint-Venant - 6 Quai Watier, 78400 Chatou, France
| | - Marco Cavalli
- National Research Council, Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection (CNR IRPI), Corso Stati Uniti 4, 35127 Padova, Italy
| | - Francesco Comiti
- Free University of Bolzano-Bozen, Faculty of Science and Technology, Bolzano, Italy
| | - Stefano Crema
- National Research Council, Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection (CNR IRPI), Corso Stati Uniti 4, 35127 Padova, Italy
| | - Elena Fernández
- INDUROT, University of Oviedo, 33600 Mieres, Asturias, Spain
| | - Glòria Furdada
- RISKNAT Research group, Geomodels Research Institute, Universitat de Barcelona, UB (Spain), Departament de Dinàmica de la Terra i de l'Oceà, Facultat de Ciències de la Terra, c/Martí i Franquès s/n, 08028 Barcelona, Spain
| | - Hanna Hajdukiewicz
- Institute of Nature Conservation, Polish Academy of Sciences, al. Mickiewicza 33, 31-120 Kraków, Poland
| | - Lukas Hunzinger
- Flussbau AG SAH, Schwarztorstrasse 7, 3007 Bern, Switzerland
| | - Ana Lucía
- Geological and Mining Institute of Spain, National Research Council (IGME-CSIC), Ríos Rosas 23, 28003 Madrid, Spain
| | - Lorenzo Marchi
- National Research Council, Research Institute for Geo-Hydrological Protection (CNR IRPI), Corso Stati Uniti 4, 35127 Padova, Italy
| | - Adina Moraru
- Norwegian University of Science and Technology, (NTNU) Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, S.P. Andersens veg 5, 7031 Trondheim, Norway
| | - Guillaume Piton
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, INRAE, CNRS, IRD, Grenoble INP, IGE, 38000 Grenoble, France
| | - Dieter Rickenmann
- Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL, Zürcherstrasse 111, CH-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland
| | | | - Nicola Surian
- University of Padova, Department of Geosciences, Via G. Gradenigo 6, 35131 Padova, Italy
| | - Rabab Yassine
- EGIS 889 rue de la Vielle Poste CS, Montpellier 34965, France
| | - Bartłomiej Wyżga
- Institute of Nature Conservation, Polish Academy of Sciences, al. Mickiewicza 33, 31-120 Kraków, Poland
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Zhang T, Li D, East AE, Kettner AJ, Best J, Ni J, Lu X. Shifted sediment-transport regimes by climate change and amplified hydrological variability in cryosphere-fed rivers. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2023; 9:eadi5019. [PMID: 37939190 PMCID: PMC10631733 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adi5019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/30/2023] [Accepted: 10/05/2023] [Indexed: 11/10/2023]
Abstract
Climate change affects cryosphere-fed rivers and alters seasonal sediment dynamics, affecting cyclical fluvial material supply and year-round water-food-energy provisions to downstream communities. Here, we demonstrate seasonal sediment-transport regime shifts from the 1960s to 2000s in four cryosphere-fed rivers characterized by glacial, nival, pluvial, and mixed regimes, respectively. Spring sees a shift toward pluvial-dominated sediment transport due to less snowmelt and more erosive rainfall. Summer is characterized by intensified glacier meltwater pulses and pluvial events that exceptionally increase sediment fluxes. Our study highlights that the increases in hydroclimatic extremes and cryosphere degradation lead to amplified variability in fluvial fluxes and higher summer sediment peaks, which can threaten downstream river infrastructure safety and ecosystems and worsen glacial/pluvial floods. We further offer a monthly-scale sediment-availability-transport model that can reproduce such regime shifts and thus help facilitate sustainable reservoir operation and river management in wider cryospheric regions under future climate and hydrological change.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ting Zhang
- Key Laboratory for Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China
- Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Dongfeng Li
- Key Laboratory for Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China
- Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
| | - Amy E. East
- U.S. Geological Survey Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
| | - Albert J. Kettner
- CSDMS, Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA
| | - Jim Best
- Departments of Geology, Geography and GIS and Mechanical Science and Engineering, and Ven Te Chow Hydrosystems Laboratory, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
| | - Jinren Ni
- Key Laboratory for Water and Sediment Sciences, Ministry of Education, College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Xixi Lu
- Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore
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Nyberg B, Henstra G, Gawthorpe RL, Ravnås R, Ahokas J. Global scale analysis on the extent of river channel belts. Nat Commun 2023; 14:2163. [PMID: 37061512 PMCID: PMC10105755 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-37852-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/01/2022] [Accepted: 03/28/2023] [Indexed: 04/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Rivers form channel belts that encompass the area of the river channel and its associated levees, bars, splays and overbank landforms. The channel belt is critical for understanding the physical river evolution through time, predicting river behavior and management of freshwater resources. To date, there is no global-scale, quantitative study of the extent of river channel belts. Here we show, based on a pattern recognition algorithm, the global surface area of channel belts at an approximate 1 km resolution is 30.5 × 105 km2, seven times larger than the extent of river channels. We find 52% of river channels associated with the channel belts have a multi-threaded planform with the remaining 48% being single-threaded by surface area. The global channel belt (GCB) datasets provide new methods for high-resolution global scale landform classifications and for incorporating the channel belt into flood mitigation, freshwater budgets, ecosystem accounting and biogeochemical analyses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Björn Nyberg
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bergen, Allegaten 41, 5020, Bergen, Norway.
- Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Allegaten 70, 5020, Bergen, Norway.
| | - Gijs Henstra
- AkerBP ASA, Oksenøyveien 10, 1366, Lysaker, Norway
| | - Rob L Gawthorpe
- Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bergen, Allegaten 41, 5020, Bergen, Norway
| | | | - Juha Ahokas
- AkerBP ASA, Oksenøyveien 10, 1366, Lysaker, Norway
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Wu Q, Ke L, Wang J, Pavelsky TM, Allen GH, Sheng Y, Duan X, Zhu Y, Wu J, Wang L, Liu K, Chen T, Zhang W, Fan C, Yong B, Song C. Satellites reveal hotspots of global river extent change. Nat Commun 2023; 14:1587. [PMID: 36949069 PMCID: PMC10033638 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-37061-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/12/2021] [Accepted: 02/21/2023] [Indexed: 03/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Rivers are among the most diverse, dynamic, and productive ecosystems on Earth. River flow regimes are constantly changing, but characterizing and understanding such changes have been challenging from a long-term and global perspective. By analyzing water extent variations observed from four-decade Landsat imagery, we here provide a global attribution of the recent changes in river regime to morphological dynamics (e.g., channel shifting and anabranching), expansion induced by new dams, and hydrological signals of widening and narrowing. Morphological dynamics prevailed in ~20% of the global river area. Booming reservoir constructions, mostly skewed in Asia and South America, contributed to ~32% of the river widening. The remaining hydrological signals were characterized by contrasting hotspots, including prominent river widening in alpine and pan-Arctic regions and narrowing in the arid/semi-arid continental interiors, driven by varying trends in climate forcing, cryospheric response to warming, and human water management. Our findings suggest that the recent river extent dynamics diverge based on hydroclimate and socio-economic conditions, and besides reflecting ongoing morphodynamical processes, river extent changes show close connections with external forcings, including climate change and anthropogenic interference.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qianhan Wu
- Key Laboratory of Watershed Geographic Sciences, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China
- School of Biological Sciences and Institute for Climate and Carbon Neurality, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China
| | - Linghong Ke
- College of Hydrology and Water Resources, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, China
- State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, China
| | - Jida Wang
- Department of Geography and Geospatial Sciences, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 66506, USA
| | - Tamlin M Pavelsky
- Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
| | - George H Allen
- Department of Geosciences, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA
| | - Yongwei Sheng
- Department of Geography, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA
| | - Xuejun Duan
- Key Laboratory of Watershed Geographic Sciences, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China
| | - Yunqiang Zhu
- State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China
| | - Jin Wu
- School of Biological Sciences and Institute for Climate and Carbon Neurality, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, China
| | - Lei Wang
- Key Laboratory of Watershed Geographic Sciences, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China
| | - Kai Liu
- Key Laboratory of Watershed Geographic Sciences, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China
| | - Tan Chen
- Key Laboratory of Watershed Geographic Sciences, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China
| | - Wensong Zhang
- School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China
| | - Chenyu Fan
- Key Laboratory of Watershed Geographic Sciences, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China
| | - Bin Yong
- College of Hydrology and Water Resources, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, China
- State Key Laboratory of Hydrology-Water Resources and Hydraulic Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210098, China
| | - Chunqiao Song
- Key Laboratory of Watershed Geographic Sciences, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing, 210008, China.
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing (UCASNJ), Nanjing, 211135, China.
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