DELTAS: Catalyzing action towards sustainability of deltaic systems with an integrated modeling framework for risk assessment

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Stefan Dech; Dr. Fabrice G. Renaud
• Subject Area: Physical Geography ; Geodesy, Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing, Geoinformatics, Cartography ; Human Geography
• Term: from 2013 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 240590131

Deltas are landforms naturally shaped by the forces of rivers and oceans characterized by flat topography with usually high agricultural productivity, by rich biodiversity, and by abundant channel systems. Frequently deltas are further characterized by the existence of oil‐ and gas deposits, and very dynamic land‐coast interactions. While delta areas comprise only 5% of the land area globally, over 500 million people live there. Natural resources and populations in delta areas are nowadays highly vulnerable. Reasons are human interference such as urbanization and socio‐economic transformation going alongside with resource exploitation. Water and land pollution, surface sealing, habitat loss, and loss of retention‐ or protection zones are only some of the endangering consequences. Climate change related sea level rise leads to an increased risk for flooding, salinity intrusion into soils and aquifers, coastal erosion, loss of ecosystem functions and agricultural land, and health hazards.The overall goal of the DELTAS project is to develop a versatile modeling framework to be utilized at the local level to advance the understanding of the unique functioning and critical stressors of each delta and to quantitatively assess delta vulnerability. The framework will ingest social, economic, biophysical, and ecosystem data and will allow planners to model and deliver optimized, viable solutions for their region. In regions for which detailed data are sparse, an infrastructure for critical data gathering will be developed and modeling and prediction tools will be customized. The framework will be applied to selected regional case‐studies for which local and regional partnerships are already in place, namely, the Ganges, Mekong, and Amazon River deltas. Also, as part of the proposed effort, an international repository of delta data will be built for easy access by the international community.The specific objectives of the proposed research of DELTAS are:(1) Development of a Global Delta Vulnerability Index (GDVI) as a metric that captures current and projected physical‐social‐economic status of deltas around the world(2) Development of a versatile modeling framework which can operate at a regional level and can form a quantitative basis for investigating and comparing scenarios and trade‐offs for decision making. Furthermore, a Delta Risk Assessment and Decision Support Tool (Deltas‐RADS) will be developed.(3) Work with regional teams and stakeholders to put our science to action (Deltas‐ACT) by demonstrating the implementation of the developed framework to three major deltas of diverse physical‐social environments, i.e. the Mekong, Ganges, and Amazon deltas.(4) Lead an effort to consolidate and make readily available data on physical, social, and economic parameters (Deltas‐DAT) which can be used by the community to easily compute vulnerability metrics and that can be further used as input data to the Deltas‐RADS modeling framework.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Brazil, India, Japan, United Kingdom, USA
• Participating Persons: Professor Dr. Karl-Heinz Anthony; Professor Dr. Eduardo Brondizio; Professorin Dr. Sandra Costa; Professorin Dr. Efi Foufoula-Georgiou; Steven L. Goodbred; Dr. Ian James Harrison; Dr. Jonathan Michael Hutton; Professorin Dr. Zoë Matthews; Dr. Irina Overeem; Professor Dr. Ramesh Ramachandran; Professor Dr. Yoshiki Saito; Professor Dr. Charles Vörösmarty