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Extent of sediment concentration trends associated with climate and human factors across global rivers

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Abstract

Suspended sediment concentration (SSC) is a key indicator of river ecosystems, influencing aquatic habitat quality, biogeochemical cycling, reservoir sustainability, and the persistence of downstream coastal land. Despite its global significance, long-term assessments of SSC trends have been limited in spatial scope. Leveraging > 88,000,000 satellite-derived SSC estimates, we analyzed trends over a 38-year period (1984–2022) across > 200,000 river segments globally. Our analysis reveals significant SSC trends in one-third of rivers, with 27% exhibiting declines and 7% showing increases. Basins with more widespread declining SSC trends are in temperate and arid regions and the extent of change is primarily associated with dam regulation and forest recovery. In contrast, increasing trends are concentrated in tropical basins, where deforestation and high rainfall causes erosion. These findings highlight the value of a spatially and temporally coherent, global riverine SSC database for documenting and pinpointing environmental change in unmonitored rivers.

Data availability

The Global River Sediment Database (GloRivSed) database contains surface suspended sediment concentrations (SSC) derived from Landsat 5, 7, and 8 Level 1 Collection 1 surface reflectance from all rivers in the world that are ~ 60 meters wide or greater9 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15485524. Private Link to Zenodo Land cover data were from European Space Agency (ESA) WorldCover52 https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/18478/. Dam data were collected from Global Reservoir and Dam (GRanD) Database28 https://www.globaldamwatch.org/grand/. Hydrological datasets were from Global Runoff Data Centre (GRDC)54 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pete-Falloon/publication/252683891_New_Global_River_Routing_Scheme_in_the_Unified_Model/links/56b05e5e08ae8e37214d7b2a/New-Global-River-Routing-Scheme-in-the-Unified-Model.pdf. Rainfall erosivity data were from Global Rainfall Erosivity Database (GloREDa)15 https://esdac.jrc.ec.europa.eu/content/global-rainfall-erosivity. Climate classes were referred from Köppen-Geiger climate classification55 https://www.gloh2o.org/koppen/. Lithology data were from Global Lithological Map56 https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.788537. Aridity data were from Global Aridity Index57 https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Global_Aridity_Index_and_Potential_Evapotranspiration_ET0_Climate_Database_v2/7504448/5. Rainfall data were collected from Global Rainfall data ERA5 Copernicus Climate58 https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/dataset/ecmwf-reanalysis-v5. Elevation data were from MERIT elevation dataset59 http://hydro.iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~yamadai/MERIT_Hydro/.

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Acknowledgements

Funding to Rajaram Prajapati from NASA-Earth Science New Investigator Program Grant 80NSSC21K0921. Funding to John Gardner from NSF-EAR Postdoctoral Fellowship Grant 1806983.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology and Environmental Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Rajaram Prajapati, John Gardner & Punwath Prum

  2. SmartPhones4Water (S4W), Chico, CA, USA

    Rajaram Prajapati

  3. Department of Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

    John Gardner

Authors

  1. Rajaram Prajapati
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  2. John Gardner
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  3. Punwath Prum
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Contributions

R.P. and J.G. conceived the study and designed the methodology. R.P. collected and analyzed the data and prepared the figures. R.P. wrote the original draft of the manuscript. All authors reviewed, edited, and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to
Rajaram Prajapati.

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Prajapati, R., Gardner, J. & Prum, P. Extent of sediment concentration trends associated with climate and human factors across global rivers.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-47267-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-47267-2

Keywords

  • Suspended sediment
  • Satellite remote sensing
  • Rivers
  • Landsat
  • Global change

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