journal Articles

The Shifting Sands team has been working in the Mekong River basin for more than a decade, seeking to measure and understand both the natural and anthropogenic factors which drive water and sediment dynamics and assess their socio-economic impacts. A selection of peer-reviewed outputs from the Shifting Sands team can be found below:

  • Smigaj, M., Hackney, C.R., Diem, P.K., Ngoc, N.T., Du Bui, D., Darby, S.E. and Leyland, J., 2023. Monitoring riverine traffic from space: The untapped potential of remote sensing for measuring human footprint on inland waterways. Science of the Total Environment, 860, p.160363. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.160363 (Open Access)

    In this publication, stemming from research funded by GCRF, we present a method for tracking the activity of vessels across the Mekong delta using Machine Learning. The majority of vessels identified are sand-mining barges, used to transport sediment. We show how activity increased by around 25% between 2018 and 2021. 

  • Hackney, C.R., Vasilopoulos, G., Heng, S., Darbari, V., Walker, S. and Parsons, D., 2021. Sand Mining far outpaces natural supply in a large alluvial river. Earth Surf. Dynam., 9 (5), pp. 1323–1334. https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-9-1323-2021 (Open Access)

    This research, funded by GCRF and NERC, uses satellite imagery to estimate volumes of sand removed from the Mekong River in Cambodia from 2016–2020. We demonstrate that current rates of extraction now exceed previous estimates for the entire Mekong Basin and significantly exceed the volume of sand naturally transported by the river.

  • Hackney, C.R., Darby, S.E., Parsons, D.R., Leyland, J., Best, J.L., Aalto, R., Nicholas, A.P. and Houseago, R.C., 2020. River bank instability from unsustainable sand mining in the lower Mekong River. Nature Sustainability, 3(3), pp.217-225. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-019-0455-3 (Open Access pre-print available here: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/436012/1/Hackney_etal_manuscript_ACCEPTED.pdf)  

    This paper presents one of the first known efforts to link sand extraction and associated river-bed level lowering with natural rates of sand replenishment to establish that there is an increased risk of bank erosion from sand mining on the Mekong River. The underpinning research was funded by NERC.

  • Leyland, J., Hackney, C.R., Darby, S.E., Parsons, D.R., Best, J.L., Nicholas, A.P., Aalto, R. and Lague, D., 2017. Extreme flood driven fluvial bank erosion and sediment loads: direct process measurements using integrated Mobile Laser Scanning (MLS) and hydro-acoustic techniques. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 42(2), pp.334-346. https://doi.org/10.1002/esp.4078 (Open Access)

    This NERC funded research uses state-of-the-art high resolution mobile laser scanning and acoustic methods to monitor a rapidly eroding river bank on the Mekong in Cambodia, linking the erosion dynamics with extreme flood pulses through the system. 

  • Darby, S.E., Hackney, C.R., Leyland, J., Kummu, M., Lauri, H., Parsons, D.R., Best, J.L., Nicholas, A.P. and Aalto, R., 2016. Fluvial sediment supply to a mega-delta reduced by shifting tropical-cyclone activity. Nature, 539(7628), pp.276-279. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature19809 (Open Access pre-print available here: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/401212/1/Darby_et_al_Nature_TCs_MERGED.pdf) 

    This publication explores the links between tropical cyclone activity and declining sediment loads on the Mekong river, showing how cyclones are an important driver of sediment delivery. The research was funded via a NERC grant.