River deltas are among the most sensitive and widely exploited territories habitats on Earth. Although predominantly shallow aquatic environments, river deltas are extremely important environments socioeconomically and their usage places ever-increasing stresses on these habitats, especially where there is any anthropogenic involvement. The effective governance and administration of river delta regions often requires an intricate scientific understanding of the various contributary natural processes. River Deltas Research - Recent Advances is a book that draws on the most recent world-class scientific research on river delta topics including climate change, water quality, geomorphology, anthropogenic stresses, water quality, sedimentation, ecosystems, and many more. The research was carried out by researchers who specialise in the river deltas and related issues.

This Special Publication contains most of the contributions presented at the 1st International Workshop on Fan Deltas (1988) but also contains additional papers which make this particular volume a very well-rounded reference source for the advanced undergraduate/graduate student and the professional earth scientist concerned with sedimentology and petroleum geology. The papers describe the sedimentology and tectonic setting of this important depositional environment. Course-grained deltas, ranging from sand to gravelly, are fully covered and the main focus is on steep-face systems whose steep subaqueous slopes are dominated by high-energy processes. The volume includes case histories from around the world and throughout the book there is emphasis on the subaqueous realm of the delta face, its sedimentary processes and facies associations

Humans have had a long relationship with the ebb and flow of tides on river deltas around the world. The fertile soils of river deltas provided early human civilizations with a means of farming crops and obtaining seafood from the highly productive marshes and shallow coastal waters associated with deltas. However, this relationship has at times been both nurturing and tumultuous for the development of early civilizations. The vicissitudes of seasonal changes in river flooding events as well as frequently shifting deltaic soils made life for these early human settlements challenging. These natural transient processes that affect the supply of sediments to deltas today are in many ways very similar to what they have been over the millennia of human settlements. But something else has been altered in the natural rhythm of these cycles. The massive expansion of human populations around the world in both the lower and upper drainage basins of these large rivers have changed the manner in which sediments and water are delivered to deltas. Because of the high density of human populations found in these regions, humans have developed elaborate hydrological engineering schemes in an attempt to "tame" these deltas. The goal of this book is to provide information on the historical relationship between humans and deltas that will hopefully encourage immediate preparation for coastal management plans in response to the impending inundation of major cities, as a result of global change around the world.

Coastal deltas represent one of the most diverse biophysical regions in the tropical developing world. These regions are also home to large human populations and are significant areas of agricultural production and industrialization. Tropical deltas currently face a number of environmental pressures stemming from their intensive use and rapid development, and new threts are emerging as a result of global climate change and expected sea-level rise. Focusing on the developing countries of Asia, Africa and South America, chapters explore the impact of development strategies and existing land and water management practices on delta environments. New management techniques are also explored, which address conflicts between rice-based agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries, and the emerging threat of climate change. Illustrating the current key management challenges involved in protecting tropical deltaic systems in the face of environmental change, this book will be an essential reference for students, researchers and policy makers in agriculture, environmental science and aquaculture.

The Anthropocene is the human-dominated modern era that has accelerated social, environmental and climate change across the world in the last few decades. This open access book examines the challenges the Anthropocene presents to the sustainable management of deltas, both the many threats as well as the opportunities. In the world’s deltas the Anthropocene is manifest in major land use change, the damming of rivers, the engineering of coasts and the growth of some of the world’s largest megacities; deltas are home to one in twelve of all people in the world. The book explores bio-physical and social dynamics and makes clear adaptation choices and trade-offs that underpin policy and governance processes, including visionary delta management plans. It details new analysis to illustrate these challenges, based on three significant and contrasting deltas: the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, Mahanadi and Volta. This multi-disciplinary, policy-orientated volume is strongly aligned to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals as delta populations often experience extremes of poverty, gender and structural inequality, variable levels of health and well-being, while being vulnerable to extreme and systematic climate change.