Extreme river flood exposes latent erosion risk.

ABSTRACT: Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and magnitude of river floods¹. Floods not only cause damage by inundation and loss of life^2,3 but also jeopardize infrastructure because of bank failure and riverbed erosion processes that are poorly understood. Common flood safety programmes include dyke reinforcement and river widening^4-9. The 2021 flood in the Meuse Basin caused 43 fatalities and billions of dollars of damage to infrastructure¹⁰. Here, on the basis of analysis of the Meuse flood, we show how uneven widening of the river and heterogeneity of sediment deposits under the river can cause massive erosion. A recent flood safety programme widened the river¹¹, but created bottlenecks where widening was either prevented b

SUBMITTER: Barneveld HJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12350176 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature