[OCES Seminar] Sediment Dynamics of Asia’s River-Dominated Continental Margins
Supporting the below United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:支持以下聯合國可持續發展目標：支持以下联合国可持续发展目标：
Recent studies indicate that in the past 50 years, the flow of water and sediments from the world's major rivers has changed markedly. Particularly in Asia, sediment discharge from most major rivers has decreased by 80-90% due to increased human activities and climatic changes. Many of these river deltas, including the Yellow, Red, Mekong, Chao Phraya, and Indus, have been experiencing severe subsidence and coastal erosion. Consequently, most of these deltas have transitioned from a constructive, growing mode to a destructive, declining mode; for instance, the Mekong Delta has exhibited an overall negative net land gain since 2005. Our studies further reveal that not only are the deltaic shorelines retreating, but also some deltas' subaqueous portions are undergoing significant erosion, as observed in the Yangtze, Mekong, Chao Phraya, and Indus rivers.
Case studies on the fates of the Asian major rivers, such as the Yangtze, Mekong, and Irrawaddy, including the Pearl River, show that most of these sediments have been transported along the continental shelf, extending 300-800 kilometers away from their river mouths and forming distinctive distal depocenters, some up to 60 meters thick. The sediment dynamics and distribution pattern off Asian river mouths play a very import role for the continental shelf biogeochemical interactions.
Dr. Paul Liu, a full professor at North Carolina State University, is a renowned coastal geologist who specializes in the study of world river-delta-ocean systems. Dr. Liu received his BS from Ocean University of China, MS from Institute of Oceanology, CAS, and Ph.D. from Prof. John Milliman at the College of William and Mary, Virginia Institute of Marine Science in 2001, and afterwards a postdoc fellow in the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).
In the past 20 years, Dr. Liu has extensively studied more than 12 river-dominated ocean margins, for example, the Bohai Sea, the East China Sea, the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, the Okinawa Trough, the Gulf of Tonkin, the Vietnam East Sea, Gulf of Thailand, the Andaman Sea, the Gulf of Martaban, the Indus, and the Nile margins. Most recently, Paul has been working on the glacial-dominated river-delta-fjord systems in Greenland. He has published more than 90 papers and received over 9,500 citations.
Dr. Liu’s research interests are the river-delta-ocean interactions, patricianly the fluxes and fates of river-derived sediments and nutrients to the sea and their bio-geochemical implications. He has initiated, led, or co-led numerous international collaborations.
Currently Dr. Liu is also serving his college’s Director of International Affairs, he is very interested in initiating collaborations with colleagues from HKUST.