Deltas on the move; Making deltas cope with the effects of climate c

KvR report 001/2006<strong>Deltas</strong> on the moveAnnex 1Testing and selecting indicators to assess vulnerabilityand potential for system-based engineering of deltas1 WDD indicator testingThe WDD could provide various indicators for vulnerability and potential for systemoriented engineering. Potential WDD indicators were explored by plotting potentiallycausal relationships. The form of the delta could be important for e.g.accommodation space. Parameters that describe this form could therefore beimportant vulnerability indicators.Going one step further, the form of the delta could be related to both the amount ofavailable sediment, and the forcing processes that should transport this sediment.Particularly delta area, subaerial/subaqueous and shoreline, and to a lesser extentalso the number of river mouths and the offshore slope, describe the form of thedelta. River water discharge, tide, and wave power and height determine transport ofthe available sediment. Sediment discharge, subaerial/subaqueous and offshoreslope determine the potentially available amount of sediment. We analyzed whetherthe data sets were correlated (R2 in the figures below), and performed a two-tailedsignificance testing (p in the figures below). Table 1 gives an overview of testedvariables.We realize that such an overview can appear rather abstract. Therefore, we showsome relationships between variables in following figures. Some figures alsoillustrate that potentially meaningful relationships may fail to be significant at p 0.05) and is therefore not mentionedin Table 1.8485