With the completion of the Kotri Barrage in 1955, associated flood bunds constricted the active Indus River to a floodplain only 7–15 km wide. The Indus fluvio-deltaic system was harnessed and constricted to a single channel (Syvitski et al., 2009). The Indus of the Anthropocene is a completely manipulated hydrological system (Syvitski and Brakenridge, 2013), constrained by levees

that have greatly changed both form and function of the river when compared with earlier channel belts. To examine the effects of these changes in more detail, we consider the evolution of river channel sinuosity and lateral migration rates. Sinuosity is the ratio of thalweg length to river valley length, using appropriate length scales (Kinghton, 1998). Migration rates are determined from changes in thalweg position between any two time-intervals, for example every 2 km along the Indus River. We use the years 1944 (USACE 1944 maps; with a selleck kinase inhibitor geolocation RMS error 196 m, Table 1), 2000 (SRTM, RMS error 55 m, Table 1) and 2010 pre and post-flood data (MODIS, RMS error 50 m). Fig. 1 provides the 1944, 2000 and

post-flood 2010 Indus thalweg. The 1944 data are from Survey of India Maps updated with aerial photography by Army Map Service (USACE, 1944; suppl. matl.). The 1944 maps predate a 70% reduction of water discharge and an 80% reduction of its sediment load that followed a click here major increment in the emplacement of barrages and dams (Milliman et al., 1984). We contrast these migration rates so determined, with those resulting from the 2010 flood on the Indus River when ∼40,000 km2 of floodplain was inundated and 20 million Pakistani citizens were displaced, accompanied by 2000 fatalities (Syvitski et al., 2011 and Syvitski and Brakenridge, 2013). The fluvial

reach of the Indus River below Sukkur exhibited a sinuosity of 1.63 in 1944. Sinuosity was 1.81 PLEK2 in 2000 and 1.82 by 2010 (pre-flood). After the 2010 river flood, sinuosity decreased to 1.71 in just two months. Pakistan has experienced severe floods in 1950, 1956, 1957, 1973, 1976, 1978, 1988, 1992 and 2010 (Hashmi et al., 2012). The lateral migration between 1944 and 2000 was 1.95 ± 0.2 km on average (Fig. 6), a rate of 36 m/y, but only 14 m/y between the 2000 and 2010 pre-flood imagery. Remarkably during the 2010 flood, the lateral migration rate averaged 339 m in just 52 days, or 6.5 m/d. This rate suggests that the action of decadal flood events is the dominant control on the long-term migration and reworking of a channel belt. Sinuosity in the portion of the delta plain river influenced by tidal pumping (downstream of Thatta, Fig. 1) was 1.48 in 1944, 1.65 in 2000 (an increase of 35%), 1.75 in 2010 pre-flood and 1.70 in post-flood 2010. Lateral migration rates between 1944 and 2000 were 30 m/y, 20% smaller than in the fluvial reach (Fig. 5A).