This image of the Yellow River Delta and its surrounding basin was acquired on 08 February 2026 by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission.
Earth’s river deltas, home to about 5% of the global population and some of the world’s major cities, are experiencing subsidence, which exacerbates the risks from sea-level rise.
In deltas such as the Chao Phraya in Thailand, the Mekong in Vietnam and the Yellow River in China, sinking land is now the dominant driver of relative sea-level rise. This dramatically increases their vulnerability to flooding, land loss, saltwater intrusion and storm surges.