Seminars

Humans have had a long relationship with the ebb and flow of tides on river deltas around the world.  The fertile soils of river deltas provided early human civilizations with a means of farming crops and obtaining seafood from the highly productive marshes and shallow coastal waters associated with deltas.  The massive expansion of human populations around the world in both the lower and upper drainage basins of large rivers have changed the manner in which sediments and water are delivered to deltas.  The fate of river deltas around the world is now less stable and more unpredictable.  Because of the high density of human populations found in these regions, humans have developed elaborate hydrological engineering schemes in an attempt to “tame” these deltas.  Moreover, with the current eustatic sea-level rise, coupled with delta subsidence – due to natural and human-linked reasons, the fate of modern deltas is in even greater jeopardy.