Project Leader: Achim A. Beylich
Climate change will cause major changes in the Earth surface systems and the most dramatic changes are expected to occur in the cold climate environments of the Earth.
Sediflux - Sedimentary Source-to-Sink-Fluxes in Cold Environments
Cold climate landscapes are some of the last wilderness areas containing specialized and diverse plants and animals as well as large stores of soil carbon.
Geomorphological processes, operating at the Earth's surface, transfering sediments and changing landforms are dependent on climate, vegetation cover and human impacts and will be significantly affected by climate change. In this context it is a major challenge to develop a better understanding of the complex ecosystems and the mechanisms and climatic controls of sedimentary transfer processes in cold environments.
More reliable modelling of sediment transfer processes operating under present-day climatic settings is needed to determine the consequences of predicted climate change. It is necessary to collect and to compare data and knowledge from a wide range of different high latitude and high altitude environments and to develop more standardized methods and approaches for future research on sediment fluxes and relationships between climate and sedimentary transfer processes. In Europe the wide range of high latitude and high altitude environments provides great potential to investigate climate-process relationships and to model the effects of climate change by using space for time substitution.
The highly relevant questions to be addressed need a multidisciplinary approach and the joining of forces and expertise from different scientific fields. Especially a closer cooperation between geoscientists and biologists / ecologists is needed. The ESF Network, "Sedimentary Source-to-Sink-Fluxes in Cold Environments", (SEDIFLUX, 2004 - 2006), is bringing together leading scientists, young scientists and research teams from different fields. The large number of projects run by the ESF Network participants demonstrates the high level of research activity of scientists working on sediment fluxes in different cold environments.
SEDIFLUX is forming a framework for an integrated and multidisciplinary investigation of the research topic and is a catalyst for strengthening and extending contacts and exchange.