Abstract. Sediment dynamics play a major role in the agricultural and fishery productivity of the Mekong Delta. However, the understanding of sediment dynamics in the delta, one of the most complex river deltas in the world, is very limited. This is a consequence of its large extent, the intricate system of rivers, channels and floodplains, and the scarcity of observations. This study quantifies, for the first time, the suspended sediment transport and sediment deposition in the whole Mekong Delta. To this end, a quasi-2D hydrodynamic model is combined with a cohesive sediment transport model. The combined model is calibrated using six objective functions to represent the different aspects of the hydraulic and sediment transport components. The model is calibrated for the extreme flood season in 2011 and shows good performance for 2 validation years with very different flood characteristics. It is shown how sediment transport and sediment deposition is differentiated from Kratie at the entrance of the delta on its way to the coast. The main factors influencing the spatial sediment dynamics are the river and channel system, dike rings, sluice gate operations, the magnitude of the floods, and tidal influences. The superposition of these factors leads to high spatial variability of sediment transport, in particular in the Vietnamese floodplains. Depending on the flood magnitude, annual sediment loads reaching the coast vary from 48 to 60 % of the sediment load at Kratie. Deposited sediment varies from 19 to 23 % of the annual load at Kratie in Cambodian floodplains, and from 1 to 6 % in the compartmented and diked floodplains in Vietnam. Annual deposited nutrients (N, P, K), which are associated with the sediment deposition, provide on average more than 50 % of mineral fertilizers typically applied for rice crops in non-flooded ring dike floodplains in Vietnam.Through the quantification of sediment and related nutrient input, the presented study provides a quantitative basis for estimating the benefits of annual Mekong floods for agriculture and fishery, and is an important piece of information with regard to the assessment of the impacts of deltaic subsidence and climate-change-related sea level rise on delta morphology.

The Mekong Delta is under threat due to human activities that are endangering livelihood of millions of people. Hydropower development, climate change and the combined effects of sea level rise and deltaic subsidence are the main drivers impacting future flow regimes and sedimentation patterns in the Mekong Delta. We develop a sensitivity-based approach to assess the response of the floodplain hydrology and sediment dynamics in the Delta to these drivers. A quasi-2D hydrodynamic model of suspended sediment dynamics is used to simulate the sediment transport and sediment deposition in the delta, including Tonle Sap Lake, for a baseline (2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010) and a future (2050)(2051)(2052)(2053)(2054)(2055)(2056)(2057)(2058)(2059)(2060) period. For each driver we derive a plausible range of future states and discretize it into different levels, resulting in 216 combinations. Our results thus cover all plausible future pathways of sediment dynamics in the delta based on current knowledge. Our results indicate that hydropower development dominates the changes in floodplain sediment dynamics of the Mekong Delta, while sea level rise has the smallest effect. The floodplains of the Vietnamese Mekong Delta are much more sensitive to the changes compared to the other subsystems of the delta. The median changes of the three drivers combined indicate that the inundation extent would increase slightly, but the overall floodplain sedimentation would decrease by approximately 40%, and the sediment load to the South China Sea would diminish to half of the current rates. The maximum changes in all drivers would mean a nearly 90% reduction of delta sedimentation, and a 95% reduction of the sediment reaching the sea. Our findings provide new and valuable information on the possible future development of floodplain hydraulics and sedimentation in the Mekong Delta, and identify the areas that are most vulnerable to these changes. A C C E P T E D M A N U S C R I P T ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Abstract. Many urban areas experience both fluvial and pluvial floods, because locations next to rivers are preferred settlement areas and the predominantly sealed urban surface prevents infiltration and facilitates surface inundation. The latter problem is enhanced in cities with insufficient or non-existent sewer systems. While there are a number of approaches to analyse either a fluvial or pluvial flood hazard, studies of a combined fluvial and pluvial flood hazard are hardly available. Thus this study aims to analyse a fluvial and a pluvial flood hazard individually, but also to develop a method for the analysis of a combined pluvial and fluvial flood hazard. This combined fluvial-pluvial flood hazard analysis is performed taking Can Tho city, the largest city in the Vietnamese part of the Mekong Delta, as an example. In this tropical environment the annual monsoon triggered floods of the Mekong River, which can coincide with heavy local convective precipitation events, causing both fluvial and pluvial flooding at the same time. The fluvial flood hazard was estimated with a copula-based bivariate extreme value statistic for the gauge Kratie at the upper boundary of the Mekong Delta and a large-scale hydrodynamic model of the Mekong Delta. This provided the boundaries for 2-dimensional hydrodynamic inundation simulation for Can Tho city. The pluvial hazard was estimated by a peak-over-threshold frequency estimation based on local rain gauge data and a stochastic rainstorm generator. Inundation for all flood scenarios was simulated by a 2-dimensional hydrodynamic model implemented on a Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) for time-efficient flood propagation modelling. The combined fluvial-pluvial flood scenarios were derived by adding rainstorms to the fluvial flood events during the highest fluvial water levels. The probabilities of occurrence of the combined events were determined assuming independence of the two flood types and taking the seasonality and probability of coincidence into account. All hazards -fluvial, pluvial and combined -were accompanied by an uncertainty estimation taking into account the natural variability of the flood events. This resulted in probabilistic flood hazard maps showing the maximum inundation depths for a selected set of probabilities of occurrence, with maps showing the expectation (median) and the uncertainty by percentile maps. The results are critically discussed and their usage in flood risk management are outlined.

12The Mekong Delta is one of the largest and most intensively used estuaries in the world. Each 13 year it witnesses widespread flooding which is both the basis of the livelihood for more than 14 17 Million people but also the major hazard. Therefore, a thorough understanding of the 15 hydrologic and hydraulic features is urgently required for various planning purposes. interference which is governed by flood protection levels, cropping patterns and communal 27 water management. In addition, we examine the tidal influence on the inundation in various 28 parts of the Delta, since it is expected that climate change induced sea level rise will increase 29 the tidal contribution to floodplain inundation. 30 2