Morphological change in the Pearl River Delta, China

Zhang, Wei; Xu, Yong; Hoitink, A.J.F.; Sassi, M.G.; Zheng, Jinhai; Chen, Xiaowen; Zhang, Chi

doi:10.1016/j.margeo.2015.02.012

Cited by 97 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Changes in tidal dynamics, of the same order of magnitude as the changes caused by SLR, have been already observed in the PRD. These changes are mainly caused by human activities, such as sand mining and land reclamation during the last 50 years to satisfy the needs of high population growth and urbanization (Cai et al, ; Zhang et al, ; ; ). These emerge as contemporary factors, which have not been considered in this work, and which will change the bottom topography of the delta, influencing tidal and surge propagation dynamics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Future Interactions Between Sea Level Rise, Tides, and Storm Surges in the World's Largest Urban Area

Dominicis

Wolf

Jevrejeva

et al. 2020

Geophysical Research Letters

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The Pearl River Delta contains the world's largest urban area in both size and population. It is a low‐lying flood‐prone coastal environment exposed to sea level rise (SLR) and extreme water levels caused by typhoons. A Finite Volume Community Ocean Model implementation for the South China Sea and the Pearl River Delta is used to understand how future SLR, tides, and typhoon storm surges will interact and affect coastal inundation. The SLR signal and extreme surge levels provide the major contributions to flooding; however, amplification of tides could exceed 0.5 m for 2.1 m SLR and should be considered when planning future coastal defences. On the other hand, if typhoons like Hato or Mangkhut, the latest and strongest ones hitting the area, were to happen in the future, a surge level reduction up to 0.5 m could be expected in coastal areas.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Future Interactions Between Sea Level Rise, Tides, and Storm Surges in the World's Largest Urban Area

Dominicis

Wolf

Jevrejeva

et al. 2020

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…Even in flood prone coastal environments, such as the Rhine-Meuse Delta in The Netherlands, the Pearl Delta in China and the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta in Bangadesh, substantial land reclamation occurs, navigation channels are deepened to allow larger vessels, and sand mining takes place to collect building material 6,7,8 . Harbour development and the need to transfer the river discharge to the coastal ocean prevent the complete closure of deltas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tidal controls on river delta morphology

et al. 2017

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River delta degradation has been caused by extraction of natural resources, sediment retention by reservoirs, and sea-level rise. Despite global concerns about these issues, human activity in the world's largest deltas intensifies. Harbour development, construction of flood defences, sand mining and land reclamation emerge as key contemporary factors that exert an impact on delta morphology.Tides interacting with river discharge can play a crucial role in the morphodynamic development of delta channels under pressure. Emerging insights into tidal controls on river delta morphology suggest that -despite the active morphodynamics in tidal channels and mouthbar regions -tidal motion acts to stabilize delta morphology at the landscape scale under the condition that sediment import during low flows largely balances sediment export during high flows. Distributary channels subject to tides show lower migration rates and are less easily flooded by the river because of opposing nonlinear interactions between river discharge and the tide that lead to flow changes within channels and a more uniform distribution of discharge across channels. Sediment depletion and rigorous human interventions in deltas, including storm surge defence works, disrupt the dynamic morphological equilibrium and can lead to erosion and severe scour at the channel bed, even decades after an intervention.3

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“…Moreover, due to the uneven sand dredging effect between the West and North rivers, the divided flow ratio significantly increased by ∼8% at the SS station located at the apex of the North River channel networks from 1992 to 2000 (see Figure ). Near the estuarine outlets, the most influential human activities can be primarily attributed to the large‐scale land reclamations and dam constructions in the coastal area (Wu et al, ; Zhang et al, ). In particular, we showed that the alterations of tidal range at the BJ and HJ stations in the Jitimen Estuary is strongly related to the Baiteng dam constructed in the early 1970s, which is clearly identified by the 3rd EOF mode (see Figure e,f).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Near the estuarine outlets, the most influential human activities can be primarily attributed to the large-scale land reclamations and dam constructions in the coastal area (Wu et al, 2016;Zhang et al, 2015b).…”

Section: Causes Of the Long-term Evolution Of Tidal Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The evolution of tidal dynamics in the estuarine environment is affected by both natural (e.g., relative sea level rise and changing weather conditions) and human‐induced (e.g., dam constructions, dredging for navigational channels, sand excavation, and land reclamations) changes, which are two controlled factors that determine the long‐term change of tidal properties (Day & Giosan, ; Schuttelaars, de Jonge, & Chernetsky, ; Wang et al, ; Wu, Yang, Huang, & Mu, ; Zhang et al, ; Zhou et al, , ). Here, tidal dynamics refers to the general physics of vertical (i.e., the tidal current) and horizontal (i.e., the tide) water movement caused by the tidal forces of the moon and sun.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Decadal variability of tidal dynamics in the Pearl River Delta: Spatial patterns, causes, and implications for estuarine water management

Cai

Huang

Niu

et al. 2018

Hydrological Processes

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In this study, we examine the decadal variability of tidal dynamics in terms of the tidal range in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) from the 1950s to 2016. The Mann–Kendall trend test and Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) method are employed to identify the long‐term trends and spatial patterns of the annual tidal range series observed at 26 stations over the whole PRD, respectively. The results show that most stations display an increasing tidal range trend, except for some stations near estuarine outlets, which corresponds to the 1st EOF mode characterized by a rapid increase of the tidal range since the 1990s. This means that the cumulative impacts of human interventions reached their peak in the 1990s, exceeding the threshold of tidal dynamics in the PRD. To quantify human‐induced alternations of the tidal range, the tidal regime shift was subsequently explored by comparing the tidal ranges of the pre‐ and post‐1992 periods reconstructed from the EOF decomposition. The mechanism causing the tidal regime shift in the PRD can be attributed to the substantially reduced residual water level slope (hence, the effective bottom friction) that greatly enhances the tidal dynamics. Our study describes the shift of spatial–temporal tidal dynamics patterns in detail, which is particularly useful to guide effective and sustainable water management in the PRD and other river deltas that are subjected to intensive human interventions.

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Morphological change in the Pearl River Delta, China

Cited by 97 publications

References 57 publications

Future Interactions Between Sea Level Rise, Tides, and Storm Surges in the World's Largest Urban Area

Future Interactions Between Sea Level Rise, Tides, and Storm Surges in the World's Largest Urban Area

Tidal controls on river delta morphology

Decadal variability of tidal dynamics in the Pearl River Delta: Spatial patterns, causes, and implications for estuarine water management

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