The Laitaure delta has an area of only about 10 km². Physiographically this delta has in the main the normal appearance with numerous active and abandoned river channels, more or less marked levee ridges, and shallow inter-levee basins of different types. The shape of the delta plain, however, is not lobate but elongate, because its lateral extent is limited by the small width of the original lake basin. Initial topographic irregularities influence the splitting and closing of channels and the formation of central and marginal delta basins, but in the main the deltaic pattern is the result of fluvial activity.

The average longitudinal slope of the delta plain, as defined by the average slope of the levee crests along the active channels, is about 0.2 per mille in the middle part of the delta, and about 0.3 per mille in the proximal part. The channels are shallow. In winter most of the smaller channels freeze to the bottom. The levees have comparatively steep backslopes. The larger inter-levee basins are subdivided by minor levee complexes into smaller lake basins. Several of the delta lakes are partly filled up by miniature deltas, formed at the mouths of inflowing channels.

At the delta front the levees are low and poorly developed, the channels are poorly defined and bar deposits of active and abandoned channels merge laterally to form greater distal lobes. The vertical and lateral extent of steeply inclined delta-front slopes of a real foreset character is small at the present delta front in Lake Laitaure.

I am very grateful for the hospitality and friendship Wille and Sigurd and other members of the Läntha family in Aktse extended to me during my field work.

The morphological development of this delta was also the subject of a doctoral thesis, published in 1994 by Hans Andrén.

A larger file in Swedish.

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