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Morphodynamic Modeling of River-Dominated Deltas: A Review and Future Perspectives
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  • Douglas Edmonds,
  • Austin J Chadwick,
  • Michael P Lamb,
  • Jorge Lorenzo-Trueba,
  • Brad Murray,
  • William Nardin,
  • Gerard Salter,
  • John B Shaw
Douglas Edmonds
Indiana University

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Austin J Chadwick
California Institute of Technology
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Michael P Lamb
California Institute of Technology
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Jorge Lorenzo-Trueba
Montclair State University
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Brad Murray
Nicholas School of the Environment
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William Nardin
University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
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Gerard Salter
California Institute of Technology
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John B Shaw
University of Arkansas
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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.