Climate Change Can Intensify the Effects of Local Interventions: A Morphological Modeling Study of a Highly Engineered Estuary

Estuaries worldwide are susceptible and adapting to climate change (CC) impacts from both the river and coastal boundaries. Furthermore, engineering efforts are undertaken to improve flood safety, to claim land for human use or for port operations, which change estuary morphology. This paper aims to gain an understanding of the combined effects of CC and human interventions on the estuarine-wide morphological response by analyzing the sediment infilling of highly engineered estuaries. A schematized process-based morphodynamic model is used (Delft3D-FM, in 2DH), resembling a highly engineered estuary in the Rhine-Meuse Delta, The Netherlands. Three types of changes were implemented, both in isolation and in combination: (a) local interventions (changing channel depth or wetland area), (b) upstream human interventions (changing fluvial sediment supply) and (c) extreme CC scenarios (with projections for the future forcings and bathymetry). Results show that a CC scenario can elicit both positive and negative changes in the estuary's sediment budget. The direction and magnitude of the change depend on the local intervention and can align with the effect of the local intervention, intensifying its impact. The combined effects can even reverse the sign of the sediment budget. This stresses the need of analyzing CC impacts in combination with human interventions. Additionally, a relationship was identified which quantifies how a change in peak flow velocity due to both local interventions and sea-level rise affects the annual sediment budget. These findings can help determine how local interventions affect morphodynamics of engineered estuaries in present and future climates. Estuaries are the regions where the rivers meet the sea. They are susceptible to climate change (CC) impacts to both the sea and river. Additionally, as these regions are among the most populated regions worldwide, they undergo constant human interventions to utilize the region's natural resources optimally. This study investigates the combined impacts of CC and human interventions on the development of estuaries by analyzing the amount of sediment accumulating or eroding from the estuary. The findings reveal that CC can intensify the influence of local interventions on the estuary's sedimentation. If the estuary has high sedimentation rates in the present, due to activities like channel deepening or wetland reclamation, sedimentation increases in the future. Conversely, if the estuary experiences little sedimentation, a decrease is observed in the future. These results highlight the importance of studying CC impacts in combination with engineering measures. As such, these findings contribute valuable insights for effective estuarine management and planning in the future. Climate change can increase or decrease the annual sediment budget of estuaries, depending on the estuary's local interventions The estuary's sediment budget was found to decrease exponentially with the peak ebb flow velocity Local interventions and relative sea-level rise affect the annual sediment budget following the exponential relationship