Results for “landform modification”

DOE OSTI2026

Cave-based chronology of valley incision in the glaciated Northern Carpathians

While glaciers leave a mark on mountain landscapes, the importance of glacial erosion in mountains at a global scale remains insufficiently constrained despite over a century of research aimed at quantifying the rates and magnitudes of such erosion. Measuring rates of landscape change across the Quaternary in repeatedly glaciated mountain landscapes requires the ability to accurately partition the relative role of glacial versus fluvial processes in forming relief; however, the modification of landforms by surface erosion hinders quantification of process rates over the last few million years. This study presents 32 paired 26 Al and 10 Be cosmogenic nuclide burial ages from allochthonous, quartz-bearing sediment deposited within a paleophreatic karst system in the northern Carpathians. These data quantify Pliocene-to-present timing of valley incision and karst system reactivation, as well as erosion rates over time. Post-burial, muon production-correction yields 24 fully resolved ages, six minimum ages, and two unresolvable ages. Burial ages are interpreted to document the tempo of valley incision via phreatic passage formation and reveal that ∼80% of current valley relief (∼700 m) had developed by approximately 1.6 Ma. Paleoerosion rates derived from this dataset suggest little change in the processes generating sediment washed into the karst networks since the Pliocene. These results suggest that river incision dominated relief creation in Carpathian valleys that bear the imprint of glaciation. Our findings suggest the importance of investigating other mid-latitude mountainous regions worldwide to determine if they have similar erosion and topographic histories.

Carpathians↗

DOE OSTI2020

DPSIR-ESA Vulnerability Assessment (DEVA) Framework: Synthesis, Foundational Overview, and Expert Case Studies

Land resources are central to understanding the relationship between humans and their environment. We broadly define a land resource to include all the ecological resources of climate, water, soil, landforms, flora, and fauna, and all the socioeconomic systems that interact with agriculture, forestry, and other land uses within some system boundary. Understanding the vulnerability of land resources to changes in land management or climate forcing is critical to developing sustainable land management strategies. Vulnerability assessments are complex given the multiple uses of the assessments, the multi-disciplinary nature of the problem, limited understanding, the dynamic structure of vulnerability, scale issues, and problems with identifying effective vulnerability indicators. Here, we propose a novel conceptual framework for vulnerability assessments of land resources that combines the driver– pressure–state–impact–response (DPSIR) framework adopted by the European Environment Agency to describe interactions between society and the environment, and the exposure-sensitivity-adaptive capacity (ESA) framework used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to assess impacts of climate change. The DPSIR-ESA Vulnerability Assessment (DEVA) framework operationalizes the process of assessing the vulnerability of a target system to external stressors. The DEVA framework includes the following elements: 1) Definition of the target system (Land resource), 2) Description of internal characteristics of the target system (State), 3) Description of target system vulnerability indicators (Adaptive capacity, Sensitivity), 4) Description of stressor characteristics (Drivers, Pressures), 5) Description of stressor vulnerability indicators (Exposure), 6) Description of target system response to stressors (Impacts), and 7) Description of modifications to target systems or stressors (Responses). In stating that they have “applied the DEVA framework”, analysts acknowledge that they have (a) considered the full breadth of each DEVA element, (b) have made conscious decisions to limit the scope and complexity of certain elements, and (c) can communicate both the rationale for these decisions and the impact of these decisions on the vulnerability assessment results and recommendations. The DEVA framework was refined during invited presentations and follow-up discussions from a series of Special Sessions with leading experts at two successive ASABE Annual International Meetings. Six case studies drawn from the sessions elaborate upon the DEVA framework and provide concrete examples of the key concepts. The DEVA approach gives engineers, planners, and analysts a new, flexible framework to apply a broad array of useful tools toward assessment of land resource system vulnerability.

Anandhi, Aauvadi↗