Arctic deltas as sponges: How do river deltaic plains now filter and trap sediment and carbon?

Project received funding from the National Research Centre - OPUS 27, grant no. 2024/53/B/ST10/03483. This project emphasizes the need to understand the functioning of 'large‐river deltaic estuary' systems affected by hydroclimatic development. We will show the signatures of loads and fluxes of sediments and carbon transported to the Arctic Ocean of one of Mackenzie's largest Polar rivers. Of all the world's Northern rivers, it delivers the largest amount of sediment to the Arctic Ocean. The Mackenzie Delta significantly impacts the flow of water, sediment and nutrients into the Beaufort Sea because the delta's approximately 45,000 delta lakes and large floodplains have a very high water storage capacity. The research questions this project wants to answer about the main objectives are: Does accelerated degradation of channel bank permafrost influence hydrological processes within the deltaic environment? Does Arctic delta lakes' intense climate change release significantly influence sedimentation rates, sediment trapping, and sediment release for fluvial re‐transport? Will the amount of sediment delivered to the Ocean continue to increase in the future, or will the increasingly numerous lakes reduce it? This project comprises field‐based measurements and surveys of satellite data availability over a 'large‐river deltaic estuary', as well as remote sensing technologies and numerical hydraulic modelling. For the first time, we will implement Wetland Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (Wetland InSAR) technology for high‐resolution imaging of hydrological connectivity and freshwater transport on the coastal ecosystems of a large Arctic delta. Additionally, numerical modelling will be used based on the Adaptive Hydraulics model (AdH), and the Particle Tracking Model (PTM) uses the Lagrangian (particle‐based) approach to help understand the role of deltaic‐floodplain lakes in sediment trapping. All this is to help identify the past and future signatures of loads and fluxes of sediments and carbon transported to the Arctic Ocean via large‐river deltaic estuaries. The outcome from the applied science point of view will be the provision of model‐based quantitative information and future trends to develop strategies to cope with or mitigate the effects of climate on the water and sediment connectivity between the Great Arctic Rivers and their coastal systems.

Research team:

1. Kazimierz Wielki University, Faculty of Geographical Sciences Michal Habel, Sergey Chalov, Anirban Mukhopadhyay, Dawid Szatten, Marta Brzezinska, Damian Cieplowski, *Rituparna Acharyya,

2. Polish Academy of Science, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organisation Piotr Gierszewski, Wlodzimierz Juskiewicz,

3. Cracow University of Technology, Faculty of Environmental and Energy Engineering Pawel Hachaj, Monika Szlapa, *Magdalena Tutro,