DOI: 10.4121/462c272c-68ee-4c97-a3be-beb4029c22ed
title: Data underlying the publication: Extreme river flood exposes latent erosion risk

description: This dataset is coupled to this paper:Extreme river flood exposes latent erosion risk, Nature, 2025. <br>Creator:Hermjan Barneveld<br>Co-authors of the paper (contributors of data in italics):<em>Roy Frings</em>, Erik Mosselman, Jeremy Venditti, Maarten Kleinhans, Astrid Blom, Ralph Schielen, <em>Willem Toonen</em>, <em>Douwe Meijer</em>, <em>Andries Paarlberg</em>, <em>Pepijn van Denderen</em>, <em>Jurjen de Jong</em>, <em>Joris Beemster</em>, Lieke Melsen, Ton Hoitink.<br>Summary paper:Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and magnitude of river floods. Floods not only cause damage by inundation and loss of life but also jeopardize infrastructure because of bank failure and riverbed erosion processes that are poorly understood. Common flood safety programs include dike reinforcement and river widening. The 2021 flood in the Meuse Basin caused 43 fatalities and a multibillion-dollar damage to infrastructure. Based on analysis of the Meuse flood, we show how uneven widening of the river and heterogeneity of sediment deposits under the river can cause massive erosion. A recent flood safety program widened the river, but created bottlenecks where widening was either prevented by infrastructure, or not yet implemented. Riverbed erosion was exacerbated by tectonic uplift that had produced a thin top gravel layer above fine-grained sediment. Greatly enhanced flow velocities produced underwater dunes with troughs that broke through the gravel armour in the bottlenecks, exposing easily erodible sands, resulting in extreme scour holes, one over 15 m deep. Our investigation highlights the challenges of re-engineering rivers in the face of climate change, increased flood risks, competition for river widening space, and calls for a better understanding of the subsurface. <br>Description:This dataset provides information on the flood event on the Dutch Meuse River in July 2021. It contains data on the rainfall event, the river discharges and water levels observed and the morphological impact of the flood event. The morphological impacts relate to:erosion and deposition in the main channel, including the sudden development of deep scour holesdeposition on the floodplainsbank erosion<br>Furthermore it describes:results of 2D hydraulic simulations for the flood event, explaining triggers of the erosion and deposition.characteristics of sediment in the main riverbed and deposited on the floodplains<br>The methods of data collection and analyses are described in the Methods section of paper "Extreme river flood exposes latent erosion risk".<br>Keywords:Floods; river morphology; grain characteristics; bank erosion<br>Spatial coverage:Meuse River, the Netherlands<br>Temporal coverage:Field data collected in 2021. Discharge data since 1911 and grain diameter data since 1981 have been used.Numerical simulations with Delft3D FM for river geometries before and after the uneven river widening of the Meuse Works; 1995 (schematisation code dflowfm2d-maas-j93_6-v1a) and 2021 (schematization code dflowfm2d-maas-j21_6-v1b) respectively.<br>This dataset contains the following files:<strong>1) bank erosion.zip</strong>: bank erosion volumes (relates to Extended Data Fig 8)directory "0_sourcedata": reference to open datasets laser altimetry before and after 2021 flooddirectory "1_scripts": python scripts used on the base data and shape files, see README.txtdirectory "2_results": results of analyses with scripts, see README.txt<br><strong>2) floodplain deposits.zip</strong>: deposits of sand on proximal zone floodplains (relates to Figure 2b and Extended Data Fig 4 & 10)directory "Field work SedimentInKaart App data": file readme_viewer.txt contains link to viewer field work proximal zonedirectory "measurements_28992 real latest": original data fieldwork proximal zonedirectory "TINS beyond fieldwork laser altimetry": deposition based on laser altimetry data outside fieldwork areasdirectory "TINS fieldwork proximal": GIS files fieldwork deposition proximal zone per floodplain (ID)<br><strong>3) main river bed.zip</strong>: changes in riverbed elevation during the flood (relates to Figure 2b,3)directory "raster": raster data riverbed before and after flooddirectory "shapes": calculated bed levels per grid cell<br><strong>4) rain july 2021.zip</strong>: tiff file 48 hr ranifall (relates to Figure 1c)<br><strong>5) scour locations worldwide.zip</strong>: locations of scours at different rivers (relates to Extended Data Fig 7)<br><strong>6) Characteristics Meuse.xlsx</strong>: slopes and grain diameters Meuse (worksheet "Figures incl 2023" relates to Extended Data Fig 1)<br><strong>7) floodplain deposits composition.xlsx</strong>: grain diameters deposits ("grainsize+bank level (Nature)" relates to Extended Data Fig 5a)<br><strong>8) Floodplain_deposition.xlsx</strong>: comparison floodplain deposits from field work and laser altimetry in all floodplains ("Chart1" relates to Extended Data Fig 10b)<br><strong>9) impact_mw_u_v2_TableToExcel.xls</strong>: impact river widening Meuse Works in channel axis on max velocity at Q=3224 m3/s , "Chart3 (DHydro)" relates to Figure 2-c.<br><strong>10) Meuse2021Flood_balance.xlsx</strong>: volumes of morphological change complete Meuse: data in "Summary", erosion in "Chart_morphology (Erosion), deposition ïn "Chart_morphology (Deposition)" and combined in "Chart_morphology" (relates to Extended Data Fig 6)<br><strong>11) Meuses2021Flood_GSsamplesVU.xlsx</strong>: characteristics deposits in distal zones, fieldwork VU (relates to Extended Data Fig 9)<br><strong>12) Q_Meuse_1911-2021.xlsx</strong>: discharges flood events 1926, 1993, 1995 and 2021, data in "Summarized" (relates to Figure 1 d-e)<br><strong>13) waterlevels_Common_Meuse.xlsx</strong>: measured, simulated water levels Meuse 2021 event and head differences ("Longsection top H (detail)" relates to Extended Data Fig 2 d)<br><strong>14) output_data_fig.xlsx</strong>: worksheet “Impact MW” shows Extended Data Fig 2 e.<br><strong>15) bathy_and_levels_laser.xlsx</strong>: worksheets “Chart1_WL” and Chart1_bed” show the measured water and bed levels of Extended Data Fig 2 f and 2 g respectively.<br><strong>16) XRF analyses.xlsx</strong>: XRF-analyses floodplain deposits and scour hole ("conc. distance (Nature)" relates to Extended Data Fig 4-c-f and "Mixing % PC1" to Extended Data Fig 5-b)<br><strong>17) LIDAR water levels July 2021.zip</strong>: Water level data measured by LiDAR flight on July 16, 2021. Data Rijkswaterstaat, the Netherlands to be used under CC BY 4.0 license. Source AHN.nl.<br><strong>18) FactsheetDelft3DFM.zip</strong> containing the factsheet for the Delft3D FM models of the Meuse River (construction and calibration) by Deltares:Original file in Dutch: factsheet-maas-dflowfm2d-v2023_v1.pdfTranslated to English: factsheet-MEUSE-dflowfm2d-v2023_v1 UK.pdf<br><strong>19) Delft3D_models.zip</strong>: input and output of Delft3D simulations providing the basis for Figure 2 a,c (, and Extended Data Figure 2 a,b (maximum flow velocities and impact of uneven river widening) and Extended Data Figure 3 (bed shear stresses and impact of uneven river widening and discharge level).To use Delft3D models following website (in Dutch) can be used: https://iplo.nl/thema/water/applicaties-modellen/modelschematisaties/rivieren/Note: in The Netherlands the Delft3D models are called dflowFM models.<br>Explanation of variables:See files readme.txt and in files<br>