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Water level changes, subsidence, and sea level rise in the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna delta

2020; National Academy of Sciences; Volume: 117; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1073/pnas.1912921117

1091-6490

M. Becker, Fabrice Papa, M. Karpytchev, C. Delebecque, Yann Krien, Md Jamal Uddin Khan, Valérie Ballu, Fabien Durand, Gonéri Le Cozannet, A. K. M. Saiful Islam, Stéphane Calmant, C. K. Shum,

Geological formations and processes

Significance This work provides a robust estimate of water-level (WL) changes in the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna delta, driven by continental freshwater dynamics, vertical land motion, and sea-level rise. Through an unprecedented set of 101 gauges, we reconstruct WL variations since the 1970s and show that the WL across the delta increased slightly faster, ∼3 mm/y, than the global mean sea-level rise (∼2 mm/y). By combining satellite altimetry and WL reconstructions, we estimate that maximum expected rates of delta subsidence since the 1990s range from 1 to 7 mm/y. By 2100, even under a greenhouse gas emission mitigation scenario (RCP4.5), the subsidence could double the projected sea-level rise, making it reach 85 to 140 cm across the delta.