Riverbank Erosion and Accretion from Landsat

Riverbank erosion presents a serious risk to people and infrastructure. These risks are becoming increasingly hard to predict because of direct modification of the rivers by damming and bank stabilization, as well as indirect modification by climate change and land use change. Geomorphologists have developed scaling relationships based on watershed characteristics; however, these relationships are very coarse and limited by the available data. This research uses twenty years of satellite imagery to develop the first global dataset of riverbank erosion, which both confirms existing knowledge and opens new avenues of research.

河岸侵蚀对人类社会与基础设施均构成严重威胁。受筑坝、河岸加固等河流直接改造活动，以及气候变化、土地利用变化带来的间接影响，此类风险的预测难度正持续攀升。此前地貌学家已基于流域特征构建了尺度关联模型，但这类模型精度较为粗糙，且受限于现有数据体量。本研究依托二十年的卫星影像数据，搭建了全球首个河岸侵蚀数据集，该数据集既验证了既有研究结论，也为相关研究开辟了全新方向。