International Association of Geomorphologists Newsletter no. 13 (1/1996)

Professor Dr Stefan Kozarski

It is with deep sorrow that we inform you that Stefan passed away on 19 January 1996. We send our sincere condolences to his family and all his colleagues at the Quaternary Research Institute, Poznan, Poland.

Professor Kozarski was one of the great authorities of the Quaternary landforms and deposits of Northern Europe and his work will remain as a baseline for all future studies. He was a renowned teacher who had great compassion and sensitivity to his students. He never failed to inspire.

For the international community he was such a respected figure that he was asked to preside over the discussions which led to the establishment of the International Association of Geomorphologists at Manchester in 1985. He did this with calmness and authority and it is largely due to him that the negotiations were efficient and successful.

He went on to become a member of the executive committee, to represent his country, and to establish the Polish Association of Geomorphologists. He was the first person we turned to for advice and the first to respond. We owe him a great debt and will miss him very much.

Denys Brunsden

Report of the Working Group
on Frequency and Magnitude in Geomorphology
together with Committee on Process Measurement Standardisation

This working group was established at the third meeting of the IAG at Hamilton in 1993 with Michael Crozier (Hamilton) and Roland Mausbacher (Jena) in charge. The objective of the group is to report on the basis of information supplied by national societies on the frequency and magnitude of processes in each region. Furthermore, it is expected to report and catalogue (checklist) of desirable information in the context of geomorphic process measurements in conjunction with an ad hoc committee on standardisation.

The principles of the investigation are as follows.

In accordance with the directive from the IAG executive committee, all national societies should be given the opportunity to provide information for the report.

It would not be possible to report on the whole range of conceivable geomorphic processes because of information availability and time constraints, and a selection based on the most widespread or information-rich topics should be done. Accordingly the processes to be reported on are mass movement, fluvial processes, soil and regolith erosion, shoreline movements, tectonic and volcanic activity, glaciers and glacier lakes.

The reporting of the processes should be referenced to particular geomorphic regions and standard parameters should be employed in the description of these regions.

Information obtained should meet the dual objectives of gaining wide regional cover from national societies as well as providing a state-of-the-art report on research findings.

It was decided, in view of the size of the task and the need to prepare the report for the Bologna meeting of 1997, to adopt the following two approaches simultaneously. The first approach (research based approach) involves the selection of research experts to present a state-of-the-art summary of the main issues of frequency and magnitude concerning the particular process and how it is manifest in various regions. The second (expert knowledge approach) concerns the national bodies and attempts to provide a wide coverage of different geographic environments. A set of instructions and questions has been sent to the national bodies to which there has been a very pleasing response from individuals nominated by their national bodies. The working group is currently in the process of requesting in-depth reviews from experts on a number of selected frequency and magnitude issues. Michael Crozier and Roland Mausbacher would like to express their thanks to all concerned.

Report of the Working Group on Geomorphology and Global Tectonics

The working group on Geomorphology and Global Tectonics was established in 1993 at the third IAG meeting at Hamilton, Canada. The main objective of the group is the strengthening of links between the disciplines (primarily geomorphology, geology, and geophysics) which are concerned with the interactions between landforms and large-scale tectonic processes in order to further the understanding of such relationships. The focus is on macro-scale phenomena. The recently established IUGS Subcommission on Tectonic and Surface Processes Interactions (Chair: Dr Iain Stewart) provides a complementary coverage of tectonic-landform relationship at the regional to local scales. An IAG sub-group on Geometric Global Relief Classification chaired by Richard Dikau is concerned specifically with morphometric landform modelling and analysis at the global scale.

Given that researchers involved in the study of large-scale tectonics and landscape development come from a diverse range of disciplines, a need exists to foster interdisciplinary communication to increase awareness of research being carried out. An effective means of doing this is a research register, and a form is provided for those who wish to record their research interests. The information provided will be collated into a research register on geomorphology and global tectonics which will be made available to those who have contributed an entry. Although it is not intended that any particular area of research should be excluded from the Register, the following themes are those which most closely reflect the concerns of the working group:

• relationships between landform development and tectonics in orogenic, passive margin, and cratonic settings
• rates of long-term denudation in different tectonic settings
• use of geomorphic evidence in determining long-term patterns of crustal deformation
• modelling of interactions between tectonics and patterns of large-scale, long-term landscape development
• global scale landform morphometry and analysis, and the use and evaluation of digital topographic data in the context of large-scale morphotectonic features and processes

Please send your information for the research register by post, fax or e-mail by 30 September 1996 to

Miss Donna Easterlow
Secretary, IAGWGGGT
Department of Geography
University of Edinburgh
Drummond Street,
Edinburgh EH8 9XP
United Kingdom
Fax: 44-131-650-2524
E-mail: iag@geo.ed.ac.uk

IAG Working Group on Geomorphology and Global Tectonics Research Registration Form

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Family name:
First name:
Title (Prof., Dr.):
Institution:
Postal address:
Telephone (please include the international code in brackets):
Fax:
E-mail:
Research interests (maximum 30 words):

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The chair of the working group, M.A. Summerfield (Edinburgh), would like to thank the participants for their co-operation and assistance.

International Geographical Union Commission on Coastal System

We have received the following communication from Norb Psuty, Chair of the Coastal Commission.

The Commission on Coastal Systems is the most senior commission of the IGU and has been serving as the vehicle for international exchange of coastal information since 1952. The areas of interest range from coastal geomorphology and processes through coastal environments and resources to coastal management and policy. In a continuing effort to foster the dissemination of knowledge about the coast, the Commission is sponsoring and co-sponsoring several coastal sessions at the forthcoming IGC and your active participation is invited. At this stage in the programme development, the following activities are planned:

• foredune management session, co-sponsored with the European Union for Coastal Conservation
• coastal management session (specific theme to be finalised), joint session with the Commission on Marine Geography
• coastal hazard session, jointly sponsored with the Commission on Natural Hazard Studies and the International Association of Geomorphologists a post-congress field symposium that will visit sites in the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark

Whereas these specific sessions are being organised at present, there will be opportunity for others to develop either as the product of the submitted manuscripts or continuing efforts of the members of the Commission on Coastal Systems. You are encouraged to prepare an abstract for submission to the IGC and/or to attend the coastal sessions at the Congress. For further information about the Congress and about the abstract format please write to

The Congress Secretariat 28th IGC
Faculteit Ruimtelijke Wetenschappen
Universiteit Utrecht
Postbus 80.115
3508 TC Utrecht
The Netherlands
Fax: 31-30-254-0604
E-mail: r.vanderlinden@frw.ruu.nl

For specific information regarding the offerings of the Coastal Commission at the Congress, please write to

Dr Pieter Augustinus
Faculty of Geographical Sciences
University of Utrecht
Heidelbergiaan 2
P.O. Box 20.115
3508 TC Utrecht
The Netherlands
Fax: 31-30-254-0604
E-mail: p.augustinus@frw.ruu.nl

If you plan to participate please contact Dr Augustinus soon and with a tentative title of paper or poster.

Association of Polish Geomorphologists: WWW server

The World Wide Web server of the Association of Polish Geomorphologists is now open and the URL address is http://hum.amu.edu.pl/~sgp/welcome.html

The items available on this server are the constitution, organisational structure, members of honour, ordinary members, news, conferences, contest of the best Ph.D. thesis, publications, the virtual geomorphology, and useful links (the earth science site of the week, geomorphological organisations, related institutions, information and data, on-line publications, libraries and indexes, publishers, education, newsgroups, geoWWWservers, search engines).

For further details please contact

Dr Zbigniew Zwolinski
General Secretary APG
e-mail: zbzw@hum.amu.edu.pl

Fourth Biennial Conference of the Southern African Association of Geomorphologists

The IV Biennial Conference of SAAG will be held at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, 8-10 July 1996. The organising committee welcomes all those with an active interest in the geomorphology of the region and related matters to participate in the conference. The conference will be followed by a two-day technical workshop: Design and Instrumentation for Soil and Water Loss Estimation on Plot, Slope and Catchment Scales. This field-based workshop is being organised by J. Gunnink (UWC). For further information please contact the conference convenor:

Theo Scheepers
Department of Earth Sciences
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville 7535
South Africa
Tel: 27-21-959-2955/2233
Fax: 27-21-959-2266
E-mail: SCHEEPRS@earth.uwc.ac.za

Second International Meeting on Global Continental Paleohydrology

The second international meeting of the INQUA Commission on Global Continental Paleohydrology (GLOCOPH) will be held in Toledo, Spain, 7-9 September 1996. The three days of paper presentation will be followed by four days of field excursion on the Tagus River and in the Ebro Basin. The general themes of the symposium are

• paleohydrological techniques and approaches for understanding the global change variations in Holocene global water balance
• paleohydrological interpretations from erosional and depositional sequences response of extreme events to climate change
• paleohydrology and environmental changes
• geomorphological changes in paleochannels and paleodischarge reconstructions
• regional paleohydrology with emphasis in the tropical zone

For details please write to

Dr Gerardo Benito and Dr Alfredo Perez-Gonzales
CSIC-Centro de Ciencia Medioambientales
Serrano 115 bis
28006 Madrid
Spain
Fax: 34-1-564-0800
E-mail: Benito@cc.csic.es

Seventh Australia and New Zealand Geomorphology Group Conference

The 7th ANZGG conference will be held at the Cairns campus of James Cook University of North Queensland, 30 September - 4 October 1996. Oral presentations will be over four days with one day free for an excursion around the local region or to the Great Barrier Reef. A two-day post-conference field trip will visit the Chillagoe/Atherton Tablelands area. Abstracts will be required by 1 April 1996. For details of the conference and abstract submission please write to

Jon Nott
Department of Tropical Environment Studies and Geography
James Cook University of North Queensland
PO Box 6811
Cairns, Qld 4870
Australia
E-mail: Jonathan.Nott@jcu.edu.au

Material for IAG Newsletter should be sent to Avijit Gupta, Publication Secretary, IAG, Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore 119260. Fax: 65-777-3091. e-mail: geoagup@nus.sg
IAG home page: http://www.ttu.edu/~geomorph

The IAG Newsletter is published in the following journals:

• Zeitschrift für Geomorphologie
• Earth Surface Processes and Landforms
• Transactions of the Japanese Geomorphological Union
• Geomorphology, and
• Revue de Geomorphologie Dynamique

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© 1996 International Association of Geomorphologists
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