This four-day international meeting will bring together 70 participants, including leading experts on delta processes, promising up-and-coming researchers, and graduate students, to present science and synthesize frontier states of knowledge on physical and biological processes in deltaic systems. The meeting will be in Istomino, Russia, on the shore of Lake Baikal and next to the Selenga River delta, one of the world's largest freshwater deltas. The overarching goal for this meeting is to promote discussion amongst international and multidisciplinary scientists who focus on delta research, to describe recent and ongoing scientific advancements, to pinpoint improvements needed, and to foster near-future transformative delta research.
Owing to their extraordinary natural resources and ecosystem services, river deltas have fostered the development of past and present civilizations, and today host over a half billion people. The sustainability of these coastal landscapes is far from certain, however, due to strong anthropogenic influences including sediment-supply reduction, subsidence from sub-surface fluid extraction, leveeing, and sea-level rise. This international workshop will bring together a multidisciplinary range of delta scientists to influence the delta research agenda at a critical juncture for delta inhabitants.
Participation of US scientists and students at the workshop is jointly supported by the Geomorphology and Land-use Dynamics program in the Division of Earth Sciences and the International Science and Education section of the Office of International and Integrated Activities.
