Morphodynamic Modeling of River-Dominated Deltas: A Review and Future
Perspectives
Abstract
River deltas are a compelling target for numerical simulation because
they contain seemingly organized patterns and shapes at a variety of
scales. For instance, most river-dominated deltas, regardless of size,
have triangular to semi-circular planform shapes, channel networks, and
channel bifurcations. The common presence of these features among most
deltas in the world (Caldwell et al., 2019; Nienhuis et al., 2020)
suggests there are consistent underlying physical processes controlling
delta form and behavior. In this review, we discuss how numerical
modeling, and more specifically a type of modeling focused on the
morphodynamic feedback, has helped explore some of these key physical
processes over the last 15 years.