Palaeohydrology: Understanding Global Change

Palaeohydrology includes studies of how the composition, distribution and movement of water on the land surface of the earth over the last 20,000 years has related to past environmental changes.

Investigations provide information about the way that hydrology, and in particular, flood discharges, have changed in the past. They also show long-term hydrological trends and their implications for future changes. Past hydroclimate reconstructions related to a variety of past climate and environmental change sequences are critical to understanding future potential changes. They can provide data sets for validating the response of climate models with which to predict future change.

Key features of this book include:

• a world summary of our understanding of palaeohydrological changes.
• real world examples of past hydrological scenarios in Europe, America, Africa, Asia and Australia.
• a long-term perspective of impacts of global changes on the hydrological regime during the last 20,000 years.
• an associated website containing database, expanded bibliography and reports from international programmes. This book provides a general overview of global palaeohydrology and includes an up to date review of key methodological approaches involved in palaeohydrological construction. The first section provides a global review of palaeohydrology by focusing on major regions of the world. It shows how and why hydrological regimes have changed, and how this knowledge can help in understanding global change. The second section focuses on key methodologies for fluvial palaeohydrology, concerning use of sediment-landform assemblage and hydraulic approaches as well as hydrological methods for palaeohydrological reconstruction.

This book will be of use to researchers in fluvial geomorphology, hydrology and sedimentology, as well as professional hydrologists, sedimentologists, palaeocologists, Quaternary scientists and environmental consultants. It will make a good reference book for 2nd/3rd year undergraduates taking courses in Applied Hydrology, Global Change, Environmental Geology, Fluvial Geomorphology, Sedimentology within Departments of Geography, Environmental Science and Geology.