Integrating Geomorphological Assessments and Oral Histories in Catchment Management: Implications for the Mulgrave River,Northeastern Australia

The dramatic decline in the integrity of Australian river systems in recent decades has seen the development of landcare and catchment management groups across the continent as the main facilitators of river rehabilitation works. There is growing concern for the need to develop adaptive management frameworks that assist informed decision making through the integration of social and geomorphological knowledge into catchment planning. In the Mulgrave River Catchment of northeastern Queensland, difficult management decisions have to be made with limited access to knowledge of natural processes and baseline geomorphological data. To date management decisions have been based almost exclusively on oral histories that state that point bars are accreting and the river is becoming shallower due to bank erosion. As a result bank stabilisation and removal of sand from within the channel have been recommended in the absence of any geomorphological assessments. This study compares oral histories of river bank erosion in the Mulgrave River with geomorphic evidence to highlight the need for integrated landscape scenario planning. The results of grain size analysis of bank and bed material from 27 locations, involving 47 samples, suggest that bank erosion cannot be delivering sediments to point bars. Furthermore, qualitative analysis of historic parish maps and aerial photographs shows that there has only been moderate bank erosion at three locations along the Mulgrave River since European settlement. The study demonstrates the important role that geomorphological investigations have for catchment management and the need for management frameworks that integrate geomorphological processes and landholder priorities for sustainable river management.     

Engineering-Geomorphology Characteristics and Regionalization of the Main River Valleys of Siberia in Connection with Hydroelectric Power Development

A geomorphic regionalization of the main river valleys of Siberia is proposed for purposes of selecting potential sites for hydroelectric power stations. The regionalization is based on geomorphic features that relate to the stability of dams and to construction conditions: valley morphology; composition and thickness of sediments; geological structure and properties of dam-foundation rocks; permafrost and slope processes; seismic activity; local availability of building materials. Six basic regions are distinguished: mountains, plains, the intermediate piedmont, trap plateau, stratified plateau, tableland. Potential dam sites are listed for each major region together with projects that have been completed or are in progress.     

The Evolution of Peat‐Swamp Channels and Organic Floodplains,Barrington Tops,New South Wales,Australia

Geomorphology, geochronology and palynology are used to assess the development and stability of two channelled swamps on the Barrington Tops plateau. While both swamps commenced peat accumulation prior to about 4000 cal BP, new stratigraphic data indicate incision between 700 and 1000 cal BP, in response to regional climate change. Two broad stratigraphic units are identified in each swamp: the upper floodplain, comprised entirely of peat, and the inset floodplain, underlain by interbedded peat and fluvial sediments. Following incision, rapid vertical growth of the inset floodplain occurred on the Barrington River between 690 and 620 cal BP, and palynological data indicate a change from more saturated pre‐incision swamp flora to less saturated post‐incision swamp flora. Bankfull stage‐height, achieved many times in a year, is remarkably consistent along the length of each swamp channel. Its elevation controls the overall elevation of the swamps by controlling the height of the water‐table and hence the growth of swamp vegetation and formation of peat. In particular, contemporary channel dimensions control the growth and height of the inset floodplain, a process that results in the formation of an organic floodplain not previously described in the geomorphic literature.     

Reconstruction of local environments of ancient population in a changeable river valley landscape (The Middle Vychegda River,Northern Russia)

In river valleys, both human occupation and subsequent preservation of archaeological sites are affected by active landscape transformation caused by river lateral migration, incision/aggradation cycles and changes of river hydrological regime. In the middle Vychegda River valley (Northern Russia), there are numerous traces of human presence since the Mesolithic. We exploit multi-disciplinary archaeological, geomorphological and geochronological approach to elucidate the environmental preferences of settlements positioning during different epochs of the Holocene. High resolution space image supplemented with data on alluvial stratigraphy derived from bank exposures and hand cores, as well as 51 radiocarbon dates were used to make the geomorphic map showing ages of floodplain/terrace segments and palaeochannels. Using this map together with sediment facial interpretation, position of archaeological sites was analysed in the context of local geomorphic and hydrologic situation. The majority of archaeological sites and modern settlements are found on terraces at river banks or at oxbow lakes which were well connected to the river. Few exceptions from this rule may be explained by seasonal character of dwelling functioning, ritual burial practice or specialization of settlements. Geomorphic situation was used as a background for planning further prospection of different-age archaeological objects.     

幻景中的沉城记忆:清代黄淮运交汇区的湖市蜃楼

沉城之灾是水环境变迁引发的极端事件,湖市蜃楼以祥瑞的幻景方式重复着沉城的灾难记忆。黄淮运交汇区湖泊水系众多、河工频繁,为明清时期蓄清、刷黄、济运的水利核心区。尤其清代以后,治河无须兼顾护陵,湖泊环境的剧烈变迁引发洪泽镇、泗州城等沉入水底,给当地环境社会带来深远影响。史籍中有关湖市蜃楼的记载多见于湖面急剧扩大的清代,在洪泽湖、高宝诸湖上均有发生;蜃景发生时多被与时间空间上最近或影响最大的沉城事件联系起来。沉城再现的湖市蜃楼固然不可信,但幻景中包含了百姓的灾难记忆,提醒人们历史需被记忆,灾难不应遗忘。     

The Early Development of Pastoralism in the Central Zagros Mountains

This paper explores the changes in early forms of pastoralism in the West Central Zagros Mountains from village-based herding in the Neolithic period to initial stages in the formation of full-fledged nomadic pastoralism by the Late Chalcolithic period. It has been argued that the initial development of pastoralism in the Central Zagros Mountains should be viewed as an adaptive strategy to a highland environment with limited and dispersed resources in order to supplement a primarily agricultural village-based economy. With expansion of the agricultural regime, the distance to be traveled to pastures by herders became greater, and as a consequence, the organization of labor involved in herding had to be modified to meet the more complex task of moving sizable herds over larger areas. The empirical evidence for the assessment of hypotheses proposed in this paper comes from archaeological fieldwork in the Islamabad Plain in the Zagros Mountains in western Iran, as well as previous archaeological and ethnographic research in the region.     

道光十一年冬季严寒对京杭大运河运作状态的影响

利用清代地方志、档案等文献资料,复原了道光十一年(1831-1832年)冬的严寒实况,在此基础上分析了严寒对京杭大运河各段运作状态的影响。研究表明,道光十一年冬的严寒涉及我国整个东部地区,是此前百年中最冷的一年。在漕政日益败坏的道光年间,正常情况下的漕河整治与管理已属不易,极端气候更增加了其困难。因地理位置、面临任务以及对气候变化敏感度的不同,此次严寒对各河段的影响也就各有差异。山东运河远离黄河,水浅冰厚,主要表现为河道疏浚的困难;苏北运河地处黄运交汇,凌汛多发,主要表现为堤防修守的艰辛;江南徒阳运河虽出现了漕船通行的延迟,但相对涝灾而言,寒冷气候的影响是其次的原因。     

Robustness of Social‐Ecological Systems: Implications for Public Policy

We conceptualize social‐ecological systems (SESs) as complex adaptive systems where public policy affects and is affected by the biophysical system in which it is embedded. The study of robustness of SESs combines insights from various disciplines including economics, political science, ecology, and engineering. In this paper we present an approach that can be used to explore the implications for public policy when viewed as a component of a complex adaptive system. Our approach leverages the Institutional Analysis and Development framework to provide a platform for interdisciplinary research that focuses on system‐wide outcomes of the policy process beyond just policy change. The main message is that building robustness can create new vulnerabilities. Fail‐free policies cannot be developed, and instead of a focus on the “right” policy, we need to think about policy processes that stimulate experimentation, adaptation, and learning.     

The Holocene History of the Southern Lake Chad Basin: Archaeological, Linguistic and Genetic Evidence

Archaeological evidence indicates a complex history of settlement of the southern Lake Chad Basin from the mid-Holocene onward, in parallel with the gradual desiccation of the Sahara and reduction of lake and river systems in the region. These archaeological data can be compared with a growing body of data from historical linguistics and genetics, and the southern Lake Chad Basin is one of few areas in Africa where such comparisons can be undertaken. This paper will serve as a preliminary consideration of some of the issues generated by an initial comparison of archaeological, genetic and linguistic evidence for the peopling of the Lake Chad Basin. It focuses on the contexts of initial encounters between ancestral Nilo-Saharan and Chadic populations south of Lake Megachad and subsequent population expansions and diversifications around the Mandara Mountains.     

Rethinking transboundary waters: A critical hydropolitics of the Mekong basin

Efforts to understand the geographical and political complexities of transboundary river basins—both within national jurisdictions and at international levels—must embrace critical interdisciplinary perspectives. In this paper, we focus attention on underdeveloped aspects of transboundary water conflicts and cooperation—e.g., how ecological understandings of river basins are transformed within transboundary institutional arrangements; the way multiple actors in transboundary basins construct geographical scales; and how control over water is represented and exercised within governance and management institutions. We advance the notion of critical hydropolitics as a way of explicating these processes. We draw on a case study of conflict over and within the transboundary waters of the Mekong River basin to illustrate this approach. Our aim is to complement and extend ongoing research and policy debates concerning transboundary waters.     

Geomorphic Mapping in Prospecting for Mineral Placer Deposits

The complexity of compiling all-purpose geomorphic maps and the continuing controversy over the construction of optimal legends for such maps suggest the need for a more specialized approach to geomorphic mapping. Separate compilation of general geomorphic, structural-geomorphic and predictive-geomorphic maps is proposed. The content of analytical and synthetic structural maps is discussed. Predictive maps are viewed as a synthesis of the general and structural maps and would take the form of transparent overlays suitable for use with either of the two other maps. The content of a predictive map is discussed with particular reference to prospecting for mineral placer deposits.     

Endurance in the Canyon: Assessing preservation at a multi-component site on the Southern High Plains,USA

Abstract

Preservation decisions often have to be made regarding the long-term status of deeply buried sites. However, the opportunity to evaluate these decisions practically, decades later, is rare. The Nash site, on the Southern High Plains of the USA, is one site where reinvestigation has permitted the assessment of a well-stratified site after an intervening period of thirty years during which it was impacted by dredging and impoundment. The current condition of the site has generated challenges in both recovery and conservation of material. Renewed fieldwork at the Nash site highlights the need to evaluate preservation options while critically considering the effects of geomorphic, taphonomic, and cultural processes.     

Hydrologic response of a small forested swamp complex,Seymour Valley,British Columbia

Wetlands are common in Coastal Western Hemlock forests yet the hydrologic processes that generate runoff from small swamps are not completely understood. Direct field observations, hydrologic, and electrical conductivity data were collected from a gently sloping forested swamp complex from July to November 2009. Swamps occupied depressions between raised mounds (0.1 to 3 m high) and were connected by an ephemeral creek. Runoff was controlled by antecedent moisture conditions and influenced by basin microtopography. Two hydrologic regimes occurred during the study period and different runoff processes dominated each regime. Runoff was generated by subsurface flow during dry antecedent conditions as swamps remained hydrologically disconnected from each other. Runoff was generated by surface outflow from hydrologically connected swamps during wet antecedent conditions as ponded water spilled out of the depressions. The forested swamp complex produced a faster but limited hydrologic response during dry antecedent conditions compared to a slower but greater hydrologic response during wet antecedent conditions. Stormwater runoff and runoff ratios were up to two orders of magnitude higher in wet conditions than during similarly sized events in dry conditions. These factors should be considered when designing monitoring programs or runoff models in forested swamps with significant microtopography. Field surveys and estimates of hydrologic inputs and outputs may be useful in predicting the potential hydrologic connectivity of isolated forested swamps.     

A spatial approach to upland vegetation change and human impact: the Aber Valley,Snowdonia

Abstract

Uplands have long been considered important ‘barometers’ for human-environment relationships. Five pollen sequences from the upper Aber Valley (Snowdonia), across an altitudinal gradient, reveal that human impacts have varied temporally on small spatial scales in the region. Woodland taxa persisted into the later Holocene at lower altitudes and sites located at higher altitude reveal a more open landscape history, possibly as a result of increased exposure limiting tree growth at high elevation. Continuous pastoral human land use is evident in the high upland (400 to >600 m AOD) landscape with evidence of clearing, burning and grazing indicators throughout the records covering the last ～6000 years, with increased activity apparent during the last 2000 years. There is no clear evidence to suggest that climate change (e.g. deteriorating climatic conditions from ～850 BC) resulted in land abandonment and it appears more likely that climatic shifts could have led to changes in human land management. The results demonstrate that pastoral land use varied at different altitudes across the Aber Valley upland, and have highlighted the value and potential of high/fine spatial sampling in providing insights into land use history and the mosaic of habitats that result.     

Hydrogeomorphic Effects of River Training Works: the Case of the Allyn River,NSW

Since 1955 the NSW Department of Water Resources has undertaken extensive river training works on many NSW streams. In the Hunter Valley alone over $23 million have been spent and more than 850 km of channel have been treated Published work suggests that river training works are usually undertaken in response to a pre-existing problem of river instability but can also induce adverse hydrogeomorphic effects. One of the treated streams, the Allyn River, had been supposedly degraded by the constructed works. It was alleged that vegetation clearing, channel excavations, alignment straightening and bank protection works had decreased roughness thus increasing velocity and flood frequency. As a result, what were thought to be relatively moderate floods were eroding the banks and destroying the floodplain. A critical evaluation of the available hydraulic, hydrologic and geomorphic data revealed that the river training works were a response to, rather than a cause of river instability.     

Characterising the late prehistoric, ‘Romano-British’ and medieval landscape, and dating the emergence of a regionally distinct agricultural system in South West Britain

Palaeoenvironmental evidence for the character of lowland cultural landscapes during the last 2500 years in Britain is poorly understood, owing to a combination of an over-reliance on data from upland sequences, and because lowland mires are typically located in positions marginal to areas of settlement and agriculture. This paper presents an attempt to derive environmental evidence for this time period from a lowland context in order to characterise the key periods of change and continuity in the lowlands. The study focuses on mid-Devon, in South West Britain, and uses small pollen sites which are embedded within the historic landscape. The South West is a particularly poor region for lowland environmental data, and has until now been reliant on upland sequences. The results show that continuity, rather than abrupt change, has characterised the landscape from the later Iron Age to the early medieval period (around cal AD 800). There is no palynologically distinct Roman period in the data, contrary to evidence from the high uplands of Exmoor that suggests a decline of the agricultural system during the immediate post-Roman period. Around cal AD 800 there is a change in the agricultural system from predominantly pastoral activities to one that led to relatively high proportions of cereal pollen appearing in the sequences, which is interpreted here as marking the onset of convertible husbandry, a regionally distinct agricultural system which is recorded from AD 1350, but whose origins are not documented. This agricultural system remained in place until the post-medieval period, when the predominant agricultural regime returned to pastoralism around AD 1750. The data clearly show discrepancies between the high uplands and the lowlands, demonstrating the potential hazards of extrapolating upland sequences to lowlands environments.     

An Attempt to Classify the Landscapes of the USSR

The author, who regards landscapes as physical terrain types rather than as regional units, briefly surveys previous approaches to landscape classification and offers his own classification scheme. The scheme is based on a major division of all landscapes into plains (lowland and upland) and mountain types (distinguished by vertical zonality). Within the classification, soils and bioclimatic criteria are used to determine the upper rungs of the hierarchy, and geological and geomorphic criteria are taken into account mainly at the lower levels.     

A pilot study of “black chert” sourcing and implications for assessing hunter-gatherer mobility strategies in Northern England

Mesolithic hunter-gatherer logistic strategies and raw material procurement locales have been topics of considerable interest in northern England, accelerated by the early discoveries at Star Carr. Here we present the results of a pilot study investigating the potential for geochemically sourcing “black chert”, a material with similar qualities to flint but of inland limestone origin, using ICP-AES, ICP-MS and LA-ICP-MS. Several geological sources of black chert are known, and it is commonly present at upland Mesolithic sites along the Pennine chain. Four geological sources were sampled and analysed, along with a small sample of black chert artefacts from two upland Pennine archaeological sites. The results demonstrate that the four sampled sources can be easily differentiated from one another chemically. This research reveals the potential to apply this approach at a larger scale; the archaeological sample together with the source results indicate that additional sources will need to be identified and sampled before such data can be applied to address current questions of the Mesolithic of northern England.     

Science,Politics and Fishery Management in the US Gulf of Mexico Region

Abstract

Fisheries are a major source of food for the burgeoning human population of Earth, and their management is an extremely complex process. Management of these limited resources invariably arouses emotional responses from those participating in their harvest, processing and consumption.

A review of pertinent marine fishery management literature reveals an increasing recognition of the necessity for molding the sociopolitical, economic, biological, chemical, and physical sciences into a cohesive system that will provide managers with a sound basis for making decisions. This review discusses fishery management planning in world, US, regional, and state markets. Emphasis is on the northern Gulf of Mexico fisheries, where the authors have performed most of their research. The Gulf of Mexico region accounted for 34% of US commercial landings in 1979. In the Gulf region, fishery management plans have been developed and implemented over the past several years. Regional plans for management of resources in territorial and internal waters were produced in a state–federal–university-user effort. The interdisciplinary task force included state and federal marine fishery managers and specialists, economists, cultural anthropologists, marine biologists, marine fishery industrial representatives and management specialists.

The conceptual model of the management system provided a basis for the decision-making process. The strategic plans developed in this planning process were adopted and implemented in the five Gulf States. Several fishery management models are depicted and discussed. All show either directly or by implication that both science and politics are integral parts of the management of the several fisheries. An expanded model illustrates the interdisciplinary nature of fishery management. Some recommended political structures for fishery management are also discussed.     

An 8000-year history of landscape,climate, and copper exploitation in the Middle East: the Wadi Faynan and the Wadi Dana National Reserve in southern Jordan

Investigations of geomorphology, geoarchaeology, pollen, palynofacies, and charcoal indicate the comparative scales and significance of palaeoenvironmental changes throughout the Holocene at the junction between the hyper-arid hot Wadi 'Arabah desert and the front of the Mediterranean-belt Mountains of Edom in southern Jordan through a series of climatic changes and episodes of intense mining and smelting of copper ores. Early Holocene alluviation followed the impact of Neolithic grazers but climate drove fluvial geomorphic change in the Late Holocene, with a major arid episode corresponding chronologically with the ‘Little Ice Age’ causing widespread alluviation. The harvesting of wood for charcoal may have been sufficiently intense and widespread to affect the capacity of intensively harvested tree species to respond to a period of greater precipitation deduced for the Roman–Byzantine period – a property that affects both taphonomic and biogeographical bases for the interpretation of palynological evidence from arid-lands with substantial industrial histories. Studies of palynofacies have provided a record of human and climatic causes of soil erosion, and the changing intensity of the use of fire over time. The patterns of vegetational, climatic change and geomorphic changes are set out for this area for the last 8000 years.