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Enhancing slope safety preparedness for extreme rainfall and potential climate change impacts in Hong Kong
Published in Ken Ho, Suzanne Lacasse, Luciano Picarelli, Slope Safety Preparedness for Impact of Climate Change, 2017
K.K.S. Ho, H.W. Sun, A.C.W. Wong, C.F. Yam, S.M. Lee
The available information points to the possibility of a period of intense landslide activity during the early Holocene, coincident with the rapid rise in sea level and elevated temperatures (Sewell & Campbell, 2005; Sewell et al., 2006). A post-glacial sea level of approximately 2 m above present has been recorded in Hong Kong around 5,500 yr BP (Fyfe, 2000), corresponding to the peak of the period known as Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCO).
Luminescence dating of Quaternary alluvial successions, Sellicks Creek, South Mount Lofty Ranges, southern Australia
Published in Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, 2020
R. P. Bourman, D. Banerjee, C. V. Murray-Wallace, S. Buckman, D. K. Panda, A. P. Belperio, C. L. Jayawardena
The Waldeila Formation (Ward, 1966), the youngest alluvial unit dated in this investigation, yielded an age of 3.5 ± 0.3 ka (SK-6) consistent with the stratigraphical and geomorphological context of this succession. Sediments of the Waldeila Formation developed during the Holocene sea-level highstand, which in southern Australia, was attained some 7000 years ago (Lewis, Sloss, Murray-Wallace, Woodroffe & Smithers, 2013). Detailed charcoal records from Wilsons Bog in the Mount Lofty Ranges, reveal that infrequent but intense fires were probably associated with wetter conditions during the Holocene climatic optimum 8000–5000 years ago (Buckman et al.,2009). The period 4000–2000 ka was associated with dryer conditions and more regular but less intense fires, while peat formation about 1200 years ago signalled a return to wetter conditions, which were accompanied by frequent burning that may have been augmented by anthropogenic or ENSO-related factors. The Wilsons Bog record highlights fire as an important mechanism of hillslope destabilisation and subsequent sediment movement responsible for valley-fill aggradation. The presence of distinct charcoal layers in the Waldeila Formation at Sellicks Creek, in this study suggests that fire-related pyro-colluviation may be an important process along the range fronts in this region.
Decadal changes in size, salinity, waterbirds, and fish in lakes of the Konya Closed Basin, Turkey, associated with climate change and increasing water abstraction for agriculture
Published in Inland Waters, 2021
Gültekin Yılmaz, Mehmet Arda Çolak, İbrahim Kaan Özgencil, Melisa Metin, Mustafa Korkmaz, Serhat Ertuğrul, Melisa Soyluer, Tuba Bucak, Ülkü Nihan Tavşanoğlu, Korhan Özkan, Zuhal Akyürek, Meryem Beklioğlu, Erik Jeppesen
In the early Holocene, warmer and wetter conditions prevailed in the region (Dean et al. 2015, Roberts et al. 2016) and the landscape shifted from steppe plant dominance (e.g., Chenopodiaceae, Artemisia; Roberts et al. 2016, Woodbridge et al. 2019) to (oak) tree dominance (Roberts et al. 2011). However, the simultaneous dry-out of Paleolake Konya suggested that the precipitation pattern changed less than the temperature-induced increase in evaporation (Roberts 1983). The early Holocene was also the first period in which human activity had an unequivocal impact on the environmental landscape and altered the vegetation (Asouti and Hather 2001), likely as a result of animal herding and early crop farming activities. Çatalhöyük, one of the most populous Neolithic settlements so far discovered, with a population of 10 000 at its height, was founded in the southern alluvial margins of the basin and remained there for more than one millennium (Hodder 1996, Roberts 2002, Roberts et al. 2011, Asouti and Kabukcu 2014). After the Holocene climatic optimum (9000–5000 BP), a period of gradual aridification occurred in the mid-Holocene (Dean et al. 2015). The late Holocene witnessed a climatic amelioration accompanied by an increase in settlement numbers (Allcock and Roberts 2014) in the region, called the Beyşehir Occupation (BO) phase (∼3000–1300 BP). The basin was repopulated, with widespread arboreal agricultural areas with fruit trees (Eastwood et al. 1999). Following the centennial hiatus after the BO phase, agricultural activities regained momentum in the area, but this time with a greater emphasis on cereal farming and pastoralism during the last millennia (England et al. 2008). This pattern of agro-pastoralism remained stable well into the modern period; thus, by the mid-19th century and afterward in the Republic period, cereals, especially rye (Secale cereale), markedly increased in the pollen record (England et al. 2008). In the more recent past, with the development of irrigation techniques, water intensive crops (e.g., sugar beet and legumes) increased their share while livestock production became restricted to the mountainous regions where irrigation was not possible (Fontugne et al. 1999).