What is the difference between the Mississippi delta and the Nile Delta?

One big difference between the two is that while the Nile delta is shrinking (the Mediterranean Sea is eating away more sediment than the river can supply), the Mississippi delta is growing. The image below shows the growth of the Mississippi delta over the past 10,000 years.



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The Nile has few tribu- taries. The Mississippi drainage system is highly branched. The Mississippi takes longer to crest and subside. Climate is the factor most responsible for the rivers' differences.

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Deltas have different shapes depending on how much sediment is deposited by the river compared to how much sediment is eroded and redeposited by waves and tides. A river dominated delta, such as the map below of the Mississippi delta, Louisiana, USA, is sometimes called a bird's foot delta because of its shape.

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The Mississippi River Delta is a river-dominated delta system, influenced by the largest river system in North America. The shape of the current birdfoot delta reflects the dominance the river exerts over the other hydrologic and geologic processes at play in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

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The Delta forms the most important bird and waterfowl migration corridor on the continent and supports North America's largest wetland area and bottomland hardwood forest. The Delta's cultural traditions are as rich and diverse as its natural resources.

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The Nile Delta is the opening of the Nile, the longest river in the world, as it reaches the Mediterranean Sea. Since the Nile brings both water and rich sediment, the Delta has been a perfect area to grow food for thousands and thousands of years.

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For 7,000 years, the Mississippi River has snaked across southern Louisiana, depositing sediment from 31 states and 2 Canadian provinces across its delta. As sediment accumulated under water, plant communities began to develop, trapping more sediment and building land.

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A Nile River is considered to be the world's longest river with a total of 6650 km, followed by Amazon (6575 km), Yangtze (6300 km) and Mississippi (6275km).

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The fact that the Nile—unlike other great rivers known to them—flowed from the south northward and was in flood at the warmest time of the year was an unsolved mystery to the ancient Egyptians and Greeks.

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The impoundment of a river can cause the river to change genders because dam construction traps a lot of sediment, resulting in a reduction of the load/water ratio by 70-99%. The Nile River and the Ebro River are changing from male to female due to remarkably reduction in the sediment load transported to the deltas.

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The city area in New Orleans is between Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. This whole area is a delta area on the Mississippi River with the mouth located about 130 km southeast from there.

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