The purpose of the book is to demonstrate that the land-based geomorphological evidence of environmental change from the Late Pleistocene, Holocene, historical and contemporary time periods remains central to a full understanding of global environmental change, both at the global and regional scale. It begins with a look at how global environmental change in the Pleistocene is reflected in the history of glaciation and development of coastal landscapes, here shown on examples from Taiwan and Italy. Then it focuses on environments unaffected by human activity in an attempt to explore scenarios that may result from climate change alone. Case studies discuss evidence from diverse environments such as mountains of Canada and USA, palaeo-playas in Central Spain, steppes and forest in NW Argentina, and erosional landscapes of Central Italy. The final section looks at human activity on floodplains, coastal plains, barrier islands and mountain landscapes, and offers some practical advice on land management issues.
Contents
Global environmental
change: the global agenda, O. Slaymaker
Glacial landforms in
Taiwan and a reinterpretation of the last glacial snowline depression, M. Böse
The effects of
relative sea level changes on the coastal morphology of Southern Apulia (Italy)
during the Holocene,
M. Dini, G. Mastronuzzi and P. Sanso
Estimating Pleistocene
tectonic uplift rates in the Southeastern Apennines (Italy) from erosional land
surfaces and marine terraces, A. Amato
Slope - channel
linkage as a control on geomorphic sensitivity in Alpine basins, Cascade
Mountains, British Columbia, M. Evans
A
Holocene debris-flow chronology for an Alpine catchment, Colorado Front Range,
B. Menounos
Holocene
paleoenvironments in Central Spain reconstructed by sedimentological
investigation of playa lake systems, B. Schütt
Rainfall increase,
land use and morphodynamic changes in Northwestern Argentina as indicators of
the effects of future climatic changes, J. M. Sayago and M. Toledo
Some considerations
regarding climatic change and specific erosion in Central Italy, W. Dragoni and D. Valigi
Sensitivity of fluvial
systems to climate change and human impact: a case study from Central Europe, M. Igl, R. Mäusbacher, H.
Schneider, J. Baade
Geomorphological
change on the Tsengwen coastal plain in Southwestern Taiwan, Jui-Chin Chang
Environmental impact
of land use change in the Inner Alentejo (Portugal) in the 20th
century, D. de Brum
Ferreira
Classification of
spatial and temporal changes to a developed barrier island, Seven Mile Beach,
New Jersey, USA, N.
L. Jackson, K. F. Nordstrom, M. S. Bruno and V. L. Spalding
Impact of human activities
on geomorphic processes in the Almora region, Central Himalaya, India, J. S. Rawat, G. Rawat, S. P. Rai
Reflections on the
actual and potential role of geomorphology in global environmental change
research, O.
Slaymaker
Geomorphology, Human Activity and Global Environmental Change
International Association of Geomorphologists Publication No. 9
Olav Slaymaker (editor)
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester
322 pp.
ISBN 0-471-89590-3
Piotr Migon
Secretary General of the IAG