IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v11y2020i1d10.1038_s41467-020-16994-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Coastal sedimentation across North America doubled in the 20th century despite river dams

Author

Listed:
  • A. B. Rodriguez

    (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

  • B. A. McKee

    (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

  • C. B. Miller

    (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

  • M. C. Bost

    (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
    University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

  • A. N. Atencio

    (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

Abstract

The proliferation of dams since 1950 promoted sediment deposition in reservoirs, which is thought to be starving the coast of sediment and decreasing the resilience of communities to storms and sea-level rise. Diminished river loads measured upstream from the coast, however, should not be assumed to propagate seaward. Here, we show that century-long records of sediment mass accumulation rates (g cm−2 yr−1) and sediment accumulation rates (cm yr−1) more than doubled after 1950 in coastal depocenters around North America. Sediment sources downstream of dams compensate for the river-sediment lost to impoundments. Sediment is accumulating in coastal depocenters at a rate that matches or exceeds relative sea-level rise, apart from rapidly subsiding Texas and Louisiana where water depths are increasing and intertidal areas are disappearing. Assuming no feedbacks, accelerating global sea-level rise will eventually surpass current sediment accumulation rates, underscoring the need for including coastal-sediment management in habitat-restoration projects.

Suggested Citation

  • A. B. Rodriguez & B. A. McKee & C. B. Miller & M. C. Bost & A. N. Atencio, 2020. "Coastal sedimentation across North America doubled in the 20th century despite river dams," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-9, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-16994-z
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16994-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16994-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-020-16994-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Xuejiao Hou & Danghan Xie & Lian Feng & Fang Shen & Jaap H. Nienhuis, 2024. "Sustained increase in suspended sediments near global river deltas over the past two decades," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-16994-z. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.