Breakthrough study predicts catastrophic river shifts that threaten millions worldwide

      Indiana University researchers have uncovered key insights into the dangerous phenomenon of "river avulsion," offering a way to predict when and where rivers may suddenly and dramatically change course. Published in Nature, this breakthrough study sheds light on a process that has shaped human history through devastating floods and continues to threaten millions of people worldwide.

      Led by James "Jake" Gearon, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences (EAS) within the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, the research team has outlined for the first time the conditions that create river avulsions. Co-authors include Harrison Martin (Ph.D. EAS '23), a post-doctoral fellow now at CalTech, Clarke DeLisle (Ph.D. EAS '23) now at EVS, Inc, Eric Barefoot, a post-doctoral researcher at IU Bloomington and now a faculty member at UC-Riverside, and Professor Douglas Edmonds, the Malcolm and Sylvia Boyce Chair in Geological Sciences in the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences department.Using advanced satellite technology, the team mapped how certain landscape features make avulsions more likely. "Measuring topography around a river is difficult and time-consuming because of the dense vegetation," said Gearon. "We took advantage of a new satellite that uses lasers to measure topography." This technology, called lidar, penetrates vegetation to find bare-earth elevations, allowing for accurate topographical measurements.

     The study presents a novel framework for predicting when avulsions will occur, a problem humanity has dealt with for millennia. "Avulsions which are possibly the inspirations for ancient flood myths, have created the largest floods in human history, and continue to threaten millions of people today," explained Edmonds. "As climate change alters global water cycles and human expansion into flood-prone areas increases, understanding and predicting avulsions has never been more critical."