Speaker: Dr. Paul Liu, NCState – MEAS |

Seminar Title: World River-Derived Sediments to The Sea: Impacted by Human, Climate, and Geology |

Abstract: In the past 50 years, sediment discharges from world major rivers have sharply decreased 80-90% due to the increasing human activities (like building dams, overusing water, or sand mining) and climatic changes. Many of those river deltas have been experiencing severe coastal erosions.  Some have already turned from Constructive Growing Mode to Destructive Declining Mode, for example, the Mekong Delta has shown overall negative net land gain starting ~ 2005.  Our studies also show not only the deltaic shorelines are retreating, but also some delta’s subaqueous portions are under strong erosion, such as the Irrawaddy, Indus, Yangtze, Mekong, Chao Phraya and Indus, etc.