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  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

The surprising locales where rivers are prone to jump their banks

Rivers that change course, sometimes in just a few days, can expose large numbers of people to deadly floods.
modified ESA/Copernicus Sentinel data from 2019 shows the rivers in the Pemali delta in Indonesia.

The Pemali River delta in Indonesia. Rivers emptying into the nation’s coastal deltas are at high risk of the sudden course changes called avulsions. Credit: Sam Brooke and Vamsi Ganti

Rivers can suddenly change course, bringing catastrophic flooding, in more places than scientists had expected1.

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Nature 606, 231 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01483-8

References

  1. Brook, S. et al. Science 376, 987–990 (2022).

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