the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 26 Mar 2025
Multi-tool dataset on Northern Eurasian Riverbank Migration (NERM)
Abstract. Riverbank erosion monitoring and modeling has a long-standing tradition in Earth system science. The current body of research primarily relies on observations at the basin and reach levels. We endeavored to compile a comprehensive dataset of riverbank migration observations using a variety of measurement techniques, both field-based and remote sensing data. The dataset comprises information from twelve extensive river basins situated in Northern Eurasia, encompassing rivers that drain into the Baltic Sea, the Arctic and Pacific Oceans, and the Caspian Sea, specifically the catchments of the Vistula, Volga, Ural, Ob, Nadym, Yenisey, Lena, Indigirka, Yana, Kolyma, Amur and Kamchatka rivers. The rivers included in the dataset vary in terms of environmental conditions and have average discharges of between 0.3 and 19,700 m3/s. This study examined approximately 140,000 kilometers of rivers in Northern Eurasia, covering small, medium, and large rivers, with data from up to 70 years of water classifications obtained from satellite images, including those from LandSat and Keyhole, across 626,700 river channel segments. The dataset collected average and maximum bank retreat rates (m/year), average areas of bank retreat (m2/year), and volumes of channel erosion (t/year). It also recorded possible causes, encompassing both hydrological and catchment factors like permafrost, natural land zones, and geology. Our study showed that river discharge and permafrost distribution are the primary indicators of riverbank erosion in Northern Eurasia. These data will enhance the comprehension of bank erosion processes and their underlying factors, thereby facilitating the development of more accurate predictive models of river channels. The dataset is available open access via the ZENODO repository (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11072919) (Chalov et al., 2025).
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RC1: 'Comment on essd-2025-150', Anirban Mukhopadhyay, 17 Apr 2025
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This is a significant research work presenting a multi-tool dataset of channel or river-bank erosion rates (NERM) acquired from 12 major river basins covering 250 rivers across Northern Eurasia, covering around 140,000 km2 over a 70-year span. The NERM dataset is based on integrating in-situ assessments, remote sensing data, and geospatial applications, through which the dynamics of river-bank erosion under different hydro-climatic and geomorphic conditions are modelled accurately. This dataset has underlined the research gap by emphasizing the data scarcity regarding riverbank erosion of North Eurasian rivers. Hence, the issue of data scarcity has been addressed in this work by combining the hydro-climatic and geomorphological parameters such as water discharge, permafrost zones, channel patterns, and sediment estimates. The NERM dataset efficiently addresses the research gap by providing riverbank erosion estimates using multiple techniques. It is important to erosion monitoring in long-term and large-scale comparative analyses. The inclusion of large river-deltaic systems (Kolyma, Ob, Lena, and Yensei), medium, and minor riverine systems like Sedayakha, Tyjakha, and Khaduta, as well as many other rivers across North Eurasia, within the dataset enhances the spatial heterogeneity and comparisons across climatological and geological settings.
The methodology adopted in this work for riverbank assessment is recommendable because it efficiently combines techniques, such as in-situ assessments, UAV monitoring, area-based approaches, satellite imagery analysis, GIS digitizing algorithms, and automated statistical methods. These techniques have enriched the NERM dataset and provided important insights regarding river-bank erosion dynamics, which establishes a standard for erosion-based assessments. By generating river-bank erosion estimates using different methods, this study highlights the insights and importance of site-specific deployment of methods for future erosion assessments. In addition, the systematic validation of area-based and erosion-based methods of riverbank migration estimates, within considerable error margins, highlights the credibility of the NERM dataset. Although the methods, particularly remote sensing and geospatial approaches, frequently come across several issues in delineating river bank erosion, due to variables such as forest cover, vegetation patches, shadows, and complex relief features, etc.
The techniques used for generating results are further enhanced by using the spatial-temporal comparisons and gamma distributions for the large river-deltaic systems like Lena Ob and Lena. Additionally, it quantifies thermal erosion from permafrost and climate impacts, providing insights into future projections of riverine dynamics. Furthermore, the discussion part involves the analysis of several factors inducing riverbank migration across the river basin of Northern Eurasia. Then this work becomes immensely significant due to the development of interactive web platform GISCARTA developed to provision access to the NERM database, which is enabling its visualization and acquisition of key outputs of this study such as bank erosion/ retreat rates, erosion area, sediment yield etc in accessible file formats. The user-friendly interface of the GISCARTA platform' with regular updates is essential for researchers to monitor and analyse the fluvial processes across the riverine systems of different spatio-temporal scale.
It can be concluded by stating that this research work is highly recommendable due to the incorporation of the river basins of different spatiotemporal scales and assessing the scenario of riverbank erosion via suitable methods, which will give ideas to other researchers to apply site-specific methods for assessing riverbank erosion. It is noteworthy that different estimates have been completed to form a database or dataset of NERM, which is promoting advances in the domain of fluvial geomorphology by being an interactive source in the form of GISCARTA platforms, providing access to the estimates generated through detailed, multi-scale assessment of riverbank erosion processes across Northern Eurasia.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-150-RC1 -
RC2: 'Comment on essd-2025-150', Edgardo Latrubesse, 03 May 2025
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I enjoyed reviewing this relevant article that presents a new dataset of riverbank migration rates for Eurasian rivers at a multi-scale, and that applies and compares multi-methodological approaches, such as remote sensing techniques, and some areas with field control. The combination of migration rates and a geographic-environmental perspective is the main component for river classification.
I have some observations and general comments on shape and content that are intended to improve the message of the manuscript and its clarity to the reader.
Style: It isn't very clear for the reader to understand the analysed sections of the rivers. The authors assessed 140,000km of rivers, but why appear only a few lines and areas indicated with squares and rectangles in the map, which seems to be smaller than the 140,000km in length? Figure 1 deserves a better/expanded caption. What do the squares, lines, etc., mean?
For Table 1 also explain better. For example:
Yakutsk, length 1750km. What is this length? From upstream to downstream until Yakutsk? From Yakutsk downstream? It is recurrently unclear what the specific studied areas, reaches, and the averaged numbers discussed in the text etc.
Rivers of the Lena basins, etc. What rivers are those? Why are those rivers not plotted in a map 1 with some differential colour?
The Ob, for example, is also confusing. We have three areas/lines in the Obi basin, but only one text in Table 1.
Organize table 1 concentrating on the continuity of the information per basins (ex: Ob, Rivers of the Ob basin, Irtysh, Chulym), and not scattering information the same river basin in different sections of the table. Please use the same organization in Figure 10 and expand the caption of Figure 10.
In Figure 5 a methodological example is presented using a reach of the Ob River. It is an anabranching reach with changes on the lateral banks and on the banks of islands. However, the text mentions that only the lateral banks are computed…”for each reach expressed, the right- and left-bank migration polygons were divided by the total surface (what are is that? it is water surface area?? Eroded area on the lateral banks or all the eroded polygons? Explain it better,… And…“then by the length of the oldest of the two channel banks and then by the number of years of the analyzed time interval”. It is okay for me, but because the figure focuses on the changes by erosion, it is important to improve the explanation of the calculation and the figure itself. Indicate the polygons used in the figure for the computation, and indicate which polygons are not included in the calculation. Add a mathematical expression (formula) to the written explanation of the computation. Also include a good legend or write in the caption what green, red, etc, means on the left figure and what yellows, greens, etc, mean in the right figure. Expand the caption of the figure.Figure 6- Include coordinates in the figure and North.
It is mentioned in the test that Table 3 is related to calculations in the Irtysh River. Include that information and expand the caption of Table 3.
Sediment Yields: I assume this is a question of terminology/meaning used in different countries that can be confusing for readers. For the majority of geomorphologists, sediment yield is the amount (weight or volume) of sediment reaching or passing a point of interest in a given period of time, normalized by unit of drainage area. Thus, it is normalized in function of the drainage area that sources the sediments (X unit of weight/unit time/unit of area. However, in this study, the focus is on the source of sediments by lateral erosion per unit of channel length per unit of time. Thus, I suggest changing the term “ Sediment yield” by using the terminology “ gross bank-erosion sediment yield”. The incorporation of the term “gross” is important because the authors are not presenting the net bank erosion sediment yield, but, apparently, just the calculation of erosion. The net sediment yield is the difference between erosion and sedimentation per unit of length, and in many rivers and fluvial reaches of rivers, the balance can be positive (+) or, in others, the bank sediment yield negative (-).
I consider it important for the authors to redefine the definition of sediment yield and make clearer these conceptual issues in the methods and throughout the paper.
River Classification: the main factors here are geographic-climatic (presence of permafrost and bioclimatic zones (rainforest, Arid desert, steppe, savanna etc). I understand that it is difficult to synthesize such an amount of information in a single paper and that the authors chose those variables for the classification, but I consider that it would be important to clarify to the readers, in a short sentence, the limitations of that approach and why they chose that option. Thus, I consider it is relevant to include a short sentence in the text explaining that beyond the main factors they considered, such as permafrost and conditioning factors of the migration rates in a short scale (because just a few decades can be assessed due to the limitation of satellite products), channel patterns and the geotectonic context of the basins would be a desirable factor also to be considered. My point here is that it is desirable to highlight to the readers in a short sentence that although they chose an specific approach/way to classify the rivers, the results are indicative of average rivers´ behavior and that the diversity of migration rates along the rivers can be variable and, ideally, furtherly assessed for geomorphological reaches and channel patterns, and not just averaged over long distances. It is important because significant errors are introduced when normalizing budgets per unit of length using only lateral bank records over long distances.
General observation on figures: The captions of the figures need to be improved. Provide more details on the figure content, variables etc. Usually, the captions do not provide enough information to the reader.
Conclusion: This is a valuable article with new results and a relevant database. I am confident the authors can consider my comments and suggestions.Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2025-150-RC2
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Multi-tool dataset on Northern Eurasian Riverbank Migration (NERM) Sergey R. Chalov et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11072919
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