Climate Forcing in a Wave-Dominated Delta: The Effects of Drought-Flood Cycles on Delta Progradation

Fraticelli, Carmen M.

doi:10.2110/jsr.2006.097

Cited by 21 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…History provides a prime example: the location of the modern Brazos delta is a manifestation of displacement of the main channel by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1929 to facilitate maintenance of the Freeport deep-water navigation channel. The old delta, without supply of wood and sediment, rapidly deteriorated in the energetic wave climate of the Gulf of Mexico, and was completely eroded to a depth of 8 m within 13 years of the engineered diversion (Fraticelli 2006).…”

Section: Evolving Coastal Morphology and Sea-level Risementioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of Hurricane Storm Surge on Infrastructure Vulnerability for an Evolving Coastal Landscape

et al. 2018

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Predicting coastal infrastructure reliability during hurricane events is important for risk-based design and disaster planning, including delineating viable emergency response routes. Previous research has focused on either infrastructure vulnerability to sea-level rise and coastal flooding, or the impact of changing sea level and landforms on surge dynamics. This paper represents a multidisciplinary effort to provide an integrative model of the combined impacts of sea-level rise, landscape changes, and coastal flooding on the vulnerability of highway bridges-the only access points between barrier islands and mainland communities-during extreme storms. Coastal flooding is forward modeled for static projections of geomorphic change. First-order parameters that are adjusted include sea level and land surface elevation. These parameters are varied for each storm simulation to evaluate relative impact on the performance of bridges surrounding Freeport, Texas. Vulnerability is estimated by evaluating both the probability of structural failure given surge and wave loads as well as the time inundated. The probability of bridge failure is found to increase with storm intensity and sea level because bridge fragility increases with storm surge height. The impact of a shifting landscape on bridge accessibility is more complex; barrier island erosion and transgression can increase, decrease, or produce no change in inundation times for storms of different intensity due to changes in wind-setup and back-bay interactions. These results suggest that tying down bridge spans and elevating low-lying roadways approaching bridges may enhance efforts aimed at protecting critical infrastructure.

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Section: Evolving Coastal Morphology and Sea-level Risementioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of Hurricane Storm Surge on Infrastructure Vulnerability for an Evolving Coastal Landscape

et al. 2018

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“…This indicates that the sediment that was added to the fluvial system by the removal of the two dams was not remobilized during a single high discharge event, because no multiyear floods occurred during the study period, or even over one season, but over several seasonally high discharge events over at least four years. This contrasts with larger deltaic systems where individual swash‐bars are often thought to represent large floods and have been linked to climate cycles (Fraticelli, ; Tamura, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This amalgamation is one process by which their subaerial plains prograde and is a key diagnostic feature in distinguishing wave‐dominated deltas from fluvial‐dominated and tidal‐dominated deltas (Rodriguez et al ., ; Bhattacharya & Giosan, ). Once amalgamated to the shoreline, these swash‐bars often form beach ridges and provide an intriguing potential for reconstructing past sediment pulses, such as large flooding events, within the evolution of the wave‐dominated delta (Rodriguez et al ., ; Fraticelli, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both mouth‐bars and swash‐bars are important distinguishing components of the delta plain of wave‐dominated deltas (Reading, ). While the formation and morphology of subaerial swash‐bars on modern wave‐dominated deltas is well‐documented in other studies (Rodriguez et al ., ; Bhattacharya & Giosan, ; Fraticelli, ; Preoteasa et al ., ; Vespremeanu‐Stroe et al ., ; Nooren et al ., ), important questions remain regarding their use as sedimentary archives, including their preservation potential in the rock record. Current models are skewed towards large, near‐continental scale river systems such as the Danube (Preoteasa et al ., ; Vespremeanu‐Stroe et al ., ) and São Francisco (Dominguez, ) with bars and beach ridges that stretch alongshore at the kilometre scale.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A model for the growth and development of wave‐dominated deltas fed by small mountainous rivers: Insights from the Elwha River delta, Washington

et al. 2020

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Observations from ground‐penetrating radar, sediment cores, elevation surveys and aerial imagery are used to understand the development of the Elwha River delta in north‐western Washington, USA, which prograded as a result of two dam removals in late 2011. Swash‐bar, foreshore and swale depositional elements are recognized within ground‐penetrating radar profiles and sediment cores. A model for the growth and development of small mountainous river wave‐dominated deltas is proposed based on observation of both the fluvial and deltaic settings. If enough sediment is available in the fluvial system, mouth‐bars form after higher than average river discharge events, creating a large platform seaward of the subaqueous delta plain. Swash‐bars form concurrently or within a month of mouth‐bar deposition as a result of wave action. Fair‐weather waves drive swash‐bar migration landward and in the direction of littoral drift. The signature of swash‐bar welding to the shoreline is landward‐dipping reflections, as a result of overwash processes and slipface migration. However, most swash‐bars are eroded by the river mouth, as only 10 of the 37 swash‐bars that formed between August 2011 and July 2016 survived within the Elwha River delta. The swash‐bars that do survive either amalgamate onto the shoreline or an earlier deposited swash‐bar, forming a single larger barrier at the delta front. In asymmetrical deltas, the signature of swash‐bar welding is more likely to be preserved on the downdrift side of the delta, where formation is more likely and accommodation behind newer swash‐bars preserves older deposits. On small mountainous river deltas, welded swash‐bars may be more indicative of a large sediment pulse to the system, rather than large hydrological events.

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“…We suggest that this threshold was a change to strongly unimodal rainfall seasonality that altered both vegetation and hinterland fluvial dynamics. By analogy, Fraticelli (2006) Furthermore, wildfires were most pronounced when the hinterland was dominated by open woodlands (Fig. 2).…”

Section: Conceptual Model Of Vegetation and Weatheringmentioning

confidence: 96%

East African weathering dynamics controlled by vegetation-climate feedbacks

Ivory¹,

McGlue²,

Ellis³

et al. 2017

Geology

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Tropical weathering processes hold important linkages to global biogeochemistry, as well as landscape evolution including in the East African rift valley. We disentangle the influences of climate change and terrestrial vegetation on chemical weathering intensity and erosion at Lake Malawi using a long sediment record. Fossil pollen, microcharcoal, particle size, and mineralogy data affirm that the types of allochthonous clays accumulating in deepwater within the lake is controlled by feedbacks between climate and hinterland forest composition. Patterns of particle size are also best explained by vegetation change, through feedbacks with dynamic lake levels, wildfires, and erosion.

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Climate Forcing in a Wave-Dominated Delta: The Effects of Drought-Flood Cycles on Delta Progradation

Cited by 21 publications

References 10 publications

Impacts of Hurricane Storm Surge on Infrastructure Vulnerability for an Evolving Coastal Landscape

Impacts of Hurricane Storm Surge on Infrastructure Vulnerability for an Evolving Coastal Landscape

A model for the growth and development of wave‐dominated deltas fed by small mountainous rivers: Insights from the Elwha River delta, Washington

East African weathering dynamics controlled by vegetation-climate feedbacks

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