Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Matters Arising
  • Published:

Reply to: Concerns about data linking delta land gain to human action

Nature volume 614, pages E26–E28 (2023)Cite this article

Subjects

The Original Article was published on 08 February 2023

replying to F. Zăinescu et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05624-x (2023)

In the accompanying Comment, Zăinescu et al.1 raise a series of concerns about our study2 that broadly relate, first, to our definition of what constitutes a delta and, second, to the link between human-impacted fluvial sediment flux and the change in the area of deltas. Here we show that our conclusions remain fully supported by the best-available data. Moreover, in our view, the concerns raised by Zăinescu et al.1 are unrelated to the primary scientific contribution of our paper: the first fully quantitative prediction of the continuum of delta shapes.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Change in delta area for decreasing, stable and increasing fluvial sediment fluxes.

Data availability

Data to reproduce Fig. 1 and Supplementary Figs. 1–3 are available on https://github.com/jhnienhuis/GlobalDeltaChange under pub_figures.

Code availability

Code to reproduce Fig. 1 and Supplementary Figs. 1–3 is available on https://github.com/jhnienhuis/GlobalDeltaChange under pub_figures.

References

  1. Zăinescu, F. et al. Concerns about data linking delta land gain to human action. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05624-x (2023).

  2. Nienhuis, J. H. et al. Global-scale human impact on delta morphology has led to net land area gain. Nature 577, 514–518 (2020).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Kruit, C. Is the Rhine delta a delta? Verh. Kon. Ned. Geol. Mijnb. Gen. Geol. Ser. 21, 259–266 (1963).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Nemec, W. Deltas—Remarks on Terminology and Classification Vol. 10 (eds Colella, A. & Prior, D. B.) 3–12 (International Association of Sedimentologists, 1990).

  5. Boyd, R., Dalrymple, R. & Zaitlin, B. A. Classification of clastic coastal depositional environments. Sediment. Geol. 80, 139–150 (1992).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Syvitski, J. et al. Large deltas, small deltas: toward a more rigorous understanding of coastal marine deltas. Glob. Planet. Change 218, 103958 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Nienhuis, J. H., Hoitink, A. J. F. & Törnqvist, T. E. Future change to tide‐influenced deltas. Geophys. Res. Lett. 45, 3499–3507 (2018).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  8. Nienhuis, J. H., Ashton, A. D. & Giosan, L. What makes a delta wave-dominated? Geology 43, 511–514 (2015).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  9. Bhattacharya, J. P. & Giosan, L. Wave-influenced deltas: geomorphological implications for facies reconstruction. Sedimentology 50, 187–210 (2003).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Caldwell, R. L. et al. A global delta dataset and the environmental variables that predict delta formation on marine coastlines. Earth Surf. Dyn. 7, 773–787 (2019).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  11. Kim, Y., Kim, T.-H. & Ergün, T. The instability of the Pearson correlation coefficient in the presence of coincidental outliers. Finance Res. Lett. 13, 243–257 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Nienhuis, J. H. et al. Author Correction: Global-scale human impact on delta morphology has led to net land area gain. Nature 608, E13 (2022).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Buchhorn, M. et al. Copernicus global land cover layers—collection 2. Remote Sens. 12, 1044 (2020).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  14. Galloway, W. D. in Deltas, Models for Exploration (ed. Broussard, M. L.) 86–98 (Houston Geological Society, 1975).

Download references

Acknowledgements

J.H.N. was supported by US National Science Foundation award EAR1810855 and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) (vi.veni.192.123).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physical Geography, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    J. H. Nienhuis

  2. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA, USA

    A. D. Ashton

  3. Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

    D. A. Edmonds

  4. Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    A. J. F. Hoitink

  5. Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA

    A. J. Kettner

  6. Earth & Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA

    J. C. Rowland

  7. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA

    T. E. Törnqvist

Authors
  1. J. H. Nienhuis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. A. D. Ashton
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. D. A. Edmonds
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. A. J. F. Hoitink
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. A. J. Kettner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. J. C. Rowland
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. T. E. Törnqvist
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

J.H.N. produced the figures. J.H.N., A.D.A., D.A.E., A.J.F.H., A.J.K., J.C.R. and T.E.T. discussed the results and contributed to the text.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to J. H. Nienhuis.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains the responses to comments by Zăinescu et al.1, Supplementary Figs. 1–3 and Supplementary Table 1.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Nienhuis, J.H., Ashton, A.D., Edmonds, D.A. et al. Reply to: Concerns about data linking delta land gain to human action. Nature 614, E26–E28 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05625-w

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05625-w

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing