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The Rhine-Meuse delta in the Netherlands is subsiding due to the drainage of agricultural soils. This has been causing an increase in economic damage, flood risk and greenhouse gas emissions.

The Water, Climate and Future Deltas hub engages in research on land subsidence in deltas worldwide, especially in the Rhine-Meuse, Mekong, and Ciliwung deltas.

Land subsidence is becoming a visible and urgent problem in deltas worldwide, which is compounded by sea level rise and a reduction in sediment supply.

Contact persons of the storyline 'Sediments matter' of the Water, Climate and Future Deltas hub at Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ, a platform for scientists and external stakeholders to jointly work on ensuring the sustainability of our world’s deltas.

The urgent need for sediment management strategies and upscaling to larger-scale projects to prevent deltas from drowning requires future scientific attention.

Sedimentation enhancing strategies are crucial to keep deltas from drowning and their populations safe. Often strategies are implemented on a local scale, but it remains unclear whether they can be upscaled and applied in deltas more broadly.

Strategies that retain sediment, also called sedimentation enhancing strategies, aim to restore and facilitate land-building processes in deltas.

Sand nourishments on beaches and ebb-tidal deltas are examples of strategies that relocate sediment with the aim of accumulating sediment along the coast to mitigate flooding.

The worldwide decline in sediment supply is problematic as deltas need sediment to maintain elevation and survive increasing rates of sea level rise and subsidence.

By developing an extremely high-resolution database of the Rhine-Meuse delta, researchers at the Water, Climate and Future Deltas (WCFD) hub have reconstructed its sediment history and development over thousands of years.

Researchers at the Water, Climate and Future Deltas (WCFD) hub closely follow the sediment along the river in the Rhine-Meuse delta, from river bifurcations on the delta plain, along the floodplains, through the estuary and along the coast.

Deltas are highly dynamic: they evolve through the interaction of sediment delivery, redistribution and export. They need sediment to survive, especially with increasing rates of relative sea-level rise.

Deltas need sediment to keep up with sea level rise and land subsidence. Researchers at the Water, Climate and Future Deltas (WCFD) hub work to understand sediment behaviour and look for sustainable strategies to manage sediment.

Contact persons of the storyline 'The future of our deltas' of the Water, Climate and Future Deltas hub at Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ, a platform for scientists and external stakeholders to jointly work on ensuring the sustainability of our world’s deltas.

The most recent IPCC report shows that we are already experiencing the effects of climate change, which will intensify in the future depending on greenhouse gas emissions.

Global scenarios may not fit the specific context of countries, regions or deltas. The Water, Climate, and Future Deltas hub therefore developed regional delta scenarios that account for local and delta-specific context.

Explore the projections of future climate and socio-economic change for the world's major deltas in the Google Map below. These projections were obtained from studies by Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

By developing and using scenarios of biophysical change and socio-economic development, researchers at the Water, Climate and Future Deltas hub improve the understanding of delta systems and their drivers to identify which impact these drivers may have on deltas and their adaptation strategies in the future, e.g., as land area changes and limits management options.

The future development and vulnerability of deltas depend on changes in human and climate drivers and pressures which play on a global scale and are highly uncertain.

Explore the interdisciplinary research topics of the Water, Climate and Future Deltas hub in the storylines below.