| International Association of Geomorphologists |
The International Association of Geomorphologists Thematic Conference, Nanjing, August 25-29, 2000
During the last week in August, the world's geomorphologists kicked off the new millennium with a thematic conference devoted to Monsoon Climate, Geomorphologic Processes and Human Activities. Organised under the Chairmanship of Professor and Dean Wang Ying of Nanjing University, it was held at the new, well-appointed, International Conference Hotel (NICH) in Nanjing, China.
It was attended by 95 geomorphologists from around the world. Twenty- seven came from countries other than China including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Poland and the United States of America. The 68 registered Chinese delegates came from many parts of China including such distant cities as Guangzhou, Guilin, Lanzhou, and Qingdao.
The scientific presentations were divided into four categories: plenary addresses, keynote speeches, regular lectures, and poster displays. In all there were 59 oral presentations, 55 of which were arranged in the following five topical sessions: Terrestrial Geomorphology, Geomorphologic Processes, Geomorphology and Monsoon Climate, Geomorphology and Sedimentation of Coastal Ocean, and Human Activity Impact and Methodology. The first plenary session consisted of three presentations: one each by Olav Slaymaker, President of the IAG; Prof. Li Jijun, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); and Prof. Mario Panizza, Vice-President of the IAG. In their plenary addresses Prof. Slaymaker treated geomorphology from a global perspective, Prof. Li authored the geomorphologic history of China, and Prof. Panizza discussed environmental assets in a northern Italian setting.
Prof. Wang and her colleagues prepared a 170 page Schedule and Abstracts volume. The abstracts will also be available for reading on the internet at http://www.geomorph.org/. Ninety of the abstracts are by authors from China and represent an excellent coverage of geomorphologic research in China. It is interesting to note that of the 90, only 28 have single authorship. The rest of the Chinese contributions average more than three authors per paper suggesting that team work is a hallmark of Chinese geomorphological research.
The international scope of the conference was not only represented by the 27 attendees from outside China but also by many papers about foreign (that is, non-Chinese) geomorphology. They were also highly varied in content and represented geomorphologic settings in such countries as Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Hungary, India, Korea, Romania, Russia, Turkey, USA and Yugoslavia, among others.
Not all of the conference’s educational benefits were derived from the lecture halls. The organising committee had arranged for a number of pre- and post-Congress field trips which will be covered in the next issue of the IAG Newsletter. However, they also arranged for two inter- conference trips. The first was an afternoon geomorphologic tour in the Nanjing suburban area where we saw the famous Yangshan Stele built in 1402 and the Hulu cave with its early (350,000 years BP) fossils. The day-long trip provided visits to an excellent exposure of columnar basalt, a loess deposit, and the new campus of Nanjing University.
Of course, an international conference, especially if it is the first in a new millennium, would not be complete without its social activities. The Reception Banquet at the Jinling Hotel was held in a quite formal setting with appropriate welcoming speeches and toasts. The Farewell Banquet, on the other hand, was less formal with much animated discussion and even a floorshow.
Wang Ying, in her summation of the Conference, noted that, although the number of registrants was only 95, the number seemed appropriate for this type of thematic conference. She expressed pleasure at the fact that the exchange of ideas flowed freely between participants and that young geomorphologists were among the dominant players in the Conference. She then predicted that the scientific exchanges that took (and will continue to take) place as a result of the Conference will lead to further scientific cooperation internationally and thus strengthen the science of geomorphology. Nearly as the last act of our ever energetic host, Wang Ying, she extended Prof. Takasuke Suzuki, Chairman of the Organising Committee of the Fifth International Conference on Geomorphology, her best wishes for a successful Conference in Japan in August 2001.
H. Jesse Walker
IAG Executive Committee Meeting in Nanjing, 25 August 2000
The meeting of the IAG Executive Committee was held in association with the IAG Thematic Conference in Nanjing. It was attended by six of the seven elected officers and by two of the co-opted members. With the 5th International Conference on Geomorphology approaching, most of the time was inevitably devoted to discussing organisational details of the Tokyo Conference. The Executive co-opted William Locke (USA), the Moderator of GEOMORPHLIST, and Zbigniew Zwolinski (Poland), the webmaster of the new IAG website. The Yugoslav Association of Geomorphologists was provisionally approved as a new National Adhering Body of the IAG. The Publication Officer reported on the publication of the IAG Newsletter in languages other than English, that is in French (in Géomorphologie), Italian (in Geografia Fisica e Dinamica Quaternaria) and Spanish (Investigaciones Geográficas). The proposal of publication policy of the IAG, presented by the Sub-Committee, was approved and enforced. The Treasurer reported that the IAG budget is in a healthy state and details of a grant programme for the Tokyo Conference were agreed. The next meeting of the Executive will be held in Tokyo at the 5th International Conference on Geomorphology.
IAG Website
Following the discussions at previous Executive meetings and realising the power of electronic communication, the IAG has decided to launch an official website. Dr Zbigniew Zwolinski (University of Poznan, Poland) has been assigned the task to develop and maintain the website, for which the internet address www.geomorph.org was purchased. The website will provide details about the activities of the IAG, including its meetings and publications, and it is anticipated that, in future, it will also act as the most comprehensive guide to the science of geomorphology at all scales. The website is expected to be fully operational by January 2001. Contributions from members are welcome!
For more information please contact Zbigniew Zwolinski (zbzw@amu.edu.pl) or the Secretary (migon@geogr.uni.wroc.pl).
Piotr Migon
News from Members
Meeting of the Israeli Group of Geomorphologists on June 21, 2000
The 2000 annual meeting of the Israeli Group of Geomorphologists (IGRG) was organised by Prof. H. Lavee and Dr. P. Sarah of the Bar-Ilan University and Dr. M. Hassan and Dr. J. Lekah of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In his opening lecture Prof. M. Inbar analysed ”trends in geomorphological research and teaching at Israeli universities”. A study on ”the effect of the hydraulic regime on vertical sorting in gravel-bed rivers: humid versus arid environment” was presented in the laboratory of hydraulic processes of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem by Dr. M. Hassan, Mr. R. Egozi, and Mr. T. Grodek. An excursion to three sites followed: 1) To an instrumented experimental plot near Mishor Adumim in the semi-arid area of the Judean Desert where Dr. P. Sarah explained her research on ”watersoilvegetation relationships along a topo- climatic transect". 2) At the city of Ramalla, West Bank, Mr. Kh. Shahin, Dr. M. Hassan and Dr. A. Tamimi discussed the ”hydrological and hydrochemical assessment of the impact of urbanisation in Ramalla”. 3) To the basin of Ofra, north of Ramalla, where Dr. A. Frumkin analysed the karst of the area.
Pariente Sarah
Fifth Romanian-Italian Workshop: "Geomorphological Processes in Active Tectonic Areas"
This workshop, organised by the Institute of Geography of the Romanian Academy and the Department of Geography of Bucharest University, was held in Bucharest from May 27 to June 3, 2000. The meeting was attended by ten specialists from the Italian universities of Pisa, Florence, Bari, Modena and Camerino and by thirty researchers from Romania. Twenty-seven papers and a number of posters addressed the following topics:
- the concept of neotectonics in terms of slope and channel dynamics;
- assessment of geomorphological hazards in connection with seismic hazard zone mapping;
- trigger mechanisms of landslides in mountainous areas of high tectonic mobility.
Part of the workshop was a five-day field trip to the Carpathian arc, the sub-Carpathians and to the Danube Delta. The excursion to the Carpathian arc, the most active seismic region of intermediate earthquakes in Europe, included a visit to the Geomorphological Research Station at Patarlagele and its field experiment sites. The whole region is subject to deep seated landslides and mudflows with direct impact on human activity. Further on, the excursion-route passed the depression of the Berca anticline with active fault lines and mud volcanoes. In the Danube Delta the field trip focused on the geomorphological evolution and on particular features of one of Europe’s largest wetlands in natural versus man-managed conditions.
The information of the workshop is synthesised in a guidebook (45 p.) and in a summary volume (20 p.). The scientific program of the workshop was prepared by Dan Balteanu, Mihai Ielenicz and Nicolae Popescu (Romanian Association of Geomorphologists) in collaboration with Paolo Roberto Federici, president of the Italian Gruppo Nazionale di Geografia Fisica e Geomorphologia. The next Italian-Romanian Workshop will be held in Bari, in April 2001.
Andreea Turdeanu
Forthcoming Meetings of Interest to Geomorphologists
Soil Erosion Research for the 21st Century, January 3-5, 2001, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
Dennis C. Flanagan, fax: 765-494-5948, e-mail: flanagan@purdue.edu, http://trace.ncat.edu/erosionFirst European Permafrost Conference, March 26-28, 2001, Rome, Italy
Charles Harris, fax: +44 29 2087 4326, e-mail: harrisc@cardiff.ac.uk, http://www.geodata.soton.ac.uk/ipa/meetings/260301.html8th Multidisciplinary Conference on Sinkholes and the Engineering and Environmental Impacts of Karst, April 1-4, 2001, Louisville, Kentucky, USA
P.E. LaMoreaux and Associates, Inc., fax: 865-483-7639, e-mail: pela@icx.net, http://www.pela.com/8thcon.htmSymposium on Land Degradation and Desertification, May 6-13, 2001, Mexico, Mexico
José Luis Palacio-Prieto, fax: (52-5) 616 2145, e-mail: landegrad@igiris.igeograf.unam.mx, http://www.igeograf.unam.mx6th International Drumlin Symposium, June 17-23, 2001, Torun, Poland
Wojciech Wysota, fax:.+48 5662 273 07, e-mail: wysota@cc.uni.torun.pl, http://www.inqua.au.dk7th International Conference on Fluvial Sedimentology, August 6-10, 2001 Lincoln, Nebraska, USA
Mike Blum, fax: +1402 472 4917, e-mail: mblum1@unl.edu, http://www.unl.edu/geology/ICFS.htmlFifth International Conference on Geomorphology, August 23-28, 2001 Tokyo, Japan
5th ICG, c/o Convention Linkage, Inc, fax: +81 3 5770 5532, e-mail: 5icg@c-linkage.co.jp, http://wwwsoc.nacsis.ac.jp/jgu/icg_hopa/indexicg.html1st International Conference on Sustainable Development in Karst Regions, August 24-27, 2001 Beijing, China
Mr. Wang Wei, Miss Wang Yanjun, fax: +86 10 68311324, e-mail: CAGSDIC@public.bta.net.cnWorkshop on Uplift and Erosion: Driving Processes and Resulting Landforms, September 20-21, 2001, Certosa di Pontignano (Siena), Italy
Carlo Bartolini, fax: +39 055 218628, e-mail: c.bartolini@geo.unifi.itInternational Conference on Carpathian-Balkan Geomorphology, September 24-27, 2001, Kraków, Poland
Mariusz Kolber, fax: +48 12 635 88 84, e-mail: mkolber@wsp.krakow.pl, http://main.amu.edu.pl/~sgp/news42.html1st International Meeting on Sea-level changes and Coastal evolution and on Neotectonics, October 17-24, 2001, Taipei, Taiwan
Ping-Mei Liew, fax: 886-2-23636095, e-mail: liewpm@gl.ntu.edu.tw
Editor’s Note
The success of the IAG-Newsletter depends upon the contributions that we receive. Please assist by sending commentaries, reviews of regional or national meetings and field trips, summaries of issues pertinent to geomorphology, and announcements of future meetings and workshops. Your contributions should be forwarded to
C. Embleton-Hamann, Institut für Geographie der Universität Wien, Universitätsstraße 7, A - 1010 Wien, Austria. Fax: (+431) 4277 9486; E-mail: christine.embleton-hamann@univie.ac.at
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF GEOMORPHOLOGISTS PRESIDENT: Prof. Olav Slaymaker
Department of Geography
University of British Columbia
1984 West Mall
Vancouver, V6T 1Z2, CANADA
Fax: +1-604-8226150
E-mail: olav@geog.ubc.caVICE PRESIDENT: Prof. Mario Panizza
Dip. di Scienze della Terra
Universitá degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia
Largo S. Eufemia, 19
41 100 Modena, ITALY
Fax: +39-059-2055887
E-mail: pit@unimo.itSECRETARY GENERAL: Dr. Piotr Migon
Geographical Institute
University of Wroclaw
Pl. Uniwersytecki 1
50-137 Wroclaw, POLAND
Fax: +48-71-3435184
E-mail: migon@geogr.uni.wroc.plVisit the IAG Web Site at: http://www.geomorph.org
© 2000 International Association of Geomorphologists
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