Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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Agropastoral and dietary practices of the northern Levant facing Late Holocene climate and environmental change: Isotopic analysis of plants, animals and humans from Bronze to Iron Age Tell Tweini
- One of the largest isotopic datasets of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean region is evaluated, based on plants (n = 410), animals (n = 210) and humans (n = 16) from Tell Tweini (Syria). Diachronic analysis of plant and faunal specimens from four main periods of occupation: Early Bronze Age (2600–2000 BC), Middle Bronze Age (2000–1600 BC), Late Bronze Age (1600–1200 BC) and Iron Age (1200–333 BC) were investigated. Mean Δ13C results from seven plant species reveal emmer and free threshing wheat, olives, bitter vetch, rye grass and barley were adequately or well-watered during all periods of occupation. The grape Δ13C results suggest excellent growing conditions and particular care for its cultivation. The δ15N results indicate that especially the emmer and free threshing wheats received some manure inputs throughout the occupation sequence, while these were likely further increased during the Iron Age, encompassing also the olive groves and grape vineyards. Generally, domestic animals (cattle, sheep, goats) had C3 terrestrial diets and were kept together in similar environments. However, some animals consumed significant amounts of marine or C4 plants, possibly from disturbed habitats due to land use pressure or salt tolerant grasses and shrubs from wetland environments, which were recorded in the direct vicinity of the site. Middle Bronze Age humans consumed a C3 terrestrial diet with no measurable input from C4, freshwater or marine protein sources. Interestingly, the human diet was relatively low in animal protein and appears comparable to what is considered today a typical Mediterranean diet consisting of bread (wheat/barley), olives, grapes, pulses, dairy products and small amounts of meat. The combined isotopic analysis of plants, animals and humans from Tell Tweini represents unbroken links in the food chain which create unparalleled opportunities to enhance our current understanding of environmental conditions, climate change and lifeways in past populations from the Eastern Mediterranean.
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Geoarchaeology: Human adaptation to landscape changes, landscape resilience to human impact and integrating palaeoenvironmental and archaeological records
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The GEPATAR project: GEotechnical and Patrimonial Archives Toolbox for ARchitectural conservation in Belgium
- Belgium is well-known for its diverse collection of built heritage, visited every year by millions of people. Because of its cultural and economic importance, conservation is a priority at both federal and regional levels. Monuments may suffer from structural instabilities related to industrial and urban development, such as groundwater extraction, mining and excavation activities. Adequate protection and preservation requires an integrated analysis of environmental, architectural and historical parameters. The aim of the GEPATAR project is to create an online interactive geo-information tool that integrates information about Belgian heritage buildings and the occurrence of ground movements. The toolbox will allow the user to view and be informed about buildings potentially at risk due to differential ground movements and thus help improving the management of built patrimony. Countrywide deformation maps were produced by applying advanced multi-temporal InSAR techniques to time-series of SAR data. We used StaMPS (Stanford Method for Persistent Scatterers; Hooper et al. 2012) to process ERS-1/2 and Envisat archive data and MSBAS (Multidimensional Small Baseline Subsets; Samsonov & d’Oreye 2012) to combine both ascending and descending tracks of Sentinel-1. High-resolution deformation maps of selected urban centres were obtained by processing VHR SAR data (TerraSAR-X and CosmoSkyMed). Within the GEPATAR toolbox, the deformation maps are integrated with other geo-data layers such as geology, land-use, the location of built heritage and architectural data. Feature-based data fusion techniques are applied to create ground movement risk maps. The output risk maps will be regularly updated with the availability of new SAR acquisitions.
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Late Holocene changes on erosion pattern on a lacustrine environment: landscape stabilization by volcanic activity versus human activity.
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Use of high-resolution seismic reflection data for paleogeographical reconstruction of shallow Lake Yamanaka (Fuji Five Lakes, Japan).
- High-resolution seismic profiles, combined with the integration of published drilling data, provide a detailed paleoenvironmental history of Lake Yamanaka (Fuji Five Lakes, Japan). This study presents a detailed analysis of the different depositional stages of the area currently occupied by Lake Yamanaka (floodplain wetland, river and lake). From ca. 5500 cal yr BP to ca. 5050 cal yr BP, the Yamanaka basin was occupied by floodplain wetlands. During that period, the landscape was very stable and erosion on northeastern flank of Mt. Fuji was relatively limited. From ca. 5050 cal yr BP to ca. 3050 cal yr BP, the water level increased and the floodplain wetlands became a lake. From ca. 3050 cal yr BP to ca. 2050 cal yr BP, the water level progressively decreased, leading to a reduction in lake extent. During this lowering of the lake's water level, a 1 km2 mass-transport deposit modified the physiography of the lake floor. From ca. 2050 cal yr BP to ca. 1050 cal yr BP, the lake disappeared and a river flowing towards the northwest occupied the depression. Ponds occupied morphological lows formed by mass-transport deposits. From ca. 1050 cal yr BP to the present day, the lake water level rose again, connecting the ponds with the main lake. Since then, the lake water level has continued to rise to the current level. Lake water level fluctuations are the results of several factors that could be interconnected: (i) changes in precipitation rates; (ii) margin destabilization (the Yamanaka mass-transport deposit), (iii) changes in river inlets and therefore variation in water supplies, (iv) volcanic eruptions (scoria fall-out and lava flows) and (v) changes in vegetation cover. This study highlights the importance of coupling sediment cores and high-resolution seismic reflection profiling to identify lateral variation and modification of sedimentary inputs through time.
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Tsunami records from lacustrine environments in Thailand, Chile and Japan: potential and limitations.
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High Tide –Low Tide. Bruges’ late-medieval harbor system as a maritime cultural landscape -an interdisciplinary research project.
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Introducing the project: High Tide – Low Tide. Bruges’ late-medieval harbor system as a maritime cultural landscape.
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GEN-EX –Application of metagenomic analyses to extreme wave deposits in the Shetland Islands, UK.
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Documentering van de tijdelijke ontsluiting ‘Zuidbrug Halle’
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First interception of the anthicid beetle Anthelephila caeruleipennis (La Ferté-Sénectère, 1847) in Belgium (Coleoptera: Anthicidae: Anthicinae)
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Note sur quelques espèces invasives d'Otiorhynchus Germar, 1822 en Belgique (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)
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Description of the skeleton of the fossil beaked whale Messapicetus gregarius: searching potential proxies for deep-diving abilities
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Mangrove ecosystem properties regulate high water levels in a river delta
- Intertidal wetlands, such as mangroves in the tropics, are increasingly recognized for their role in nature-based mitigation of coastal flood risks. Yet it is still poorly understood how effective they are at attenuating the propagation of extreme sea levels through large (order of 100 km2) estuarine or deltaic systems, with complex geometry formed by networks of branching channels intertwined with mangrove and intertidal flat areas. Here, we present a delta-scale hydrodynamic modelling study, aiming to explicitly account for these complex landforms, for the case of the Guayas delta (Ecuador), the largest estuarine system on the Pacific coast of Latin America. Despite coping with data scarcity, our model accurately reproduces the observed propagation of high water levels during a spring tide. Further, based on a model sensitivity analysis, we show that high water levels are most sensitive to the mangrove platform elevation and degree of channelization but to a much lesser extent to vegetation-induced friction. Mangroves with a lower surface elevation, lower vegetation density, and higher degree of channelization all favour a more efficient flooding of the mangroves and therefore more effectively attenuate the high water levels in the deltaic channels. Our findings indicate that vast areas of channelized mangrove forests, rather than densely vegetated forests, are most effective for nature-based flood risk mitigation in a river delta.
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Mangroves as nature-based mitigation for ENSO-driven compound flood risks in a river delta
- Densely populated coastal river deltas are very vulnerable to compound flood risks, coming from both oceanic and riverine sources. Climate change may increase these compound flood risks due to sea level rise and intensifying precipitation events. Here, we investigate to what extent nature-based flood defence strategies, through conservation of mangroves in a tropical river delta, can contribute to mitigate the oceanic and riverine components of compound flood risks. While current knowledge of estuarine compound flood risks is mostly focussed on short-term events such as storm surges (taking one or a few days), longer-term events, such as El Niño events (continuing for several weeks to months) along the Pacific coast of Latin America, are understudied. Here, we present a hydrodynamic modelling study of a large river delta in Ecuador aiming to elucidate the compound effects of El Niño driven oceanic and riverine forcing on extreme high water level propagation through the delta, and in particular, the role of mangroves in reducing the compound high water levels. Our results show that the deltaic high water level anomalies are predominantly driven by the oceanic forcing but that the riverine forcing causes the anomalies to amplify upstream. Furthermore, mangroves in the delta attenuate part of the oceanic contribution to the high water level anomalies, with the attenuating effect increasing in the landward direction, while mangroves have a negligible effect on the riverine component. These findings show that mangrove conservation and restoration programs can contribute to nature-based mitigation, especially the oceanic component of compound flood risks in a tropical river delta.
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A global meta-analysis on the drivers of salt marsh planting success and implications for ecosystem services
- Planting has been widely adopted to battle the loss of salt marshes and to establish living shorelines. However, the drivers of success in salt marsh planting and their ecological effects are poorly understood at the global scale. Here, we assemble a global database, encompassing 22,074 observations reported in 210 studies, to examine the drivers and impacts of salt marsh planting. We show that, on average, 53% of plantings survived globally, and plant survival and growth can be enhanced by careful design of sites, species selection, and novel planted technologies. Planting enhances shoreline protection, primary productivity, soil carbon storage, biodiversity conservation and fishery production (effect sizes = 0.61, 1.55, 0.21, 0.10 and 1.01, respectively), compared with degraded wetlands. However, the ecosystem services of planted marshes, except for shoreline protection, have not yet fully recovered compared with natural wetlands (effect size = −0.25, 95% CI −0.29, −0.22). Fortunately, the levels of most ecological functions related to climate change mitigation and biodiversity increase with plantation age when compared with natural wetlands, and achieve equivalence to natural wetlands after 5–25 years. Overall, our results suggest that salt marsh planting could be used as a strategy to enhance shoreline protection, biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration.
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Vegetation controls on channel network complexity in coastal wetlands
- Channel networks are key to coastal wetland functioning and resilience under climate change. Vegetation affects sediment and hydrodynamics in many different ways, which calls for a coherent framework to explain how vegetation shapes channel network geometry and functioning. Here, we introduce an idealized model that shows how coastal wetland vegetation creates more complexly branching networks by increasing the ratio of channel incision versus topographic diffusion rates, thereby amplifying the channelization feedback that recursively incises finer-scale side-channels. This complexification trend qualitatively agrees with and provides an explanation for field data presented here as well as in earlier studies. Moreover, our model demonstrates that a stronger biogeomorphic feedback leads to higher and more densely vegetated marsh platforms and more extensive drainage networks. These findings may inspire future field research by raising the hypothesis that vegetation-induced self-organization enhances the storm surge buffering capacity of coastal wetlands and their resilience under sea-level rise.
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On the relative role of abiotic and biotic controls on channel network development: insights from scaled tidal flume experiments
- Tidal marshes provide highly valued ecosystem services, which depend on variations in the geometric properties of the tidal channel networks dissecting marsh landscapes. The development and evolution of channel network properties are controlled by abiotic (dynamic flow-landform feedback) and biotic processes (e.g., vegetation-flow-landform feedback). However, the relative role of biotic and abiotic processes, and under which condition one or the other is more dominant, remains poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the impact of spatio-temporal plant colonization patterns on tidal channel network development through flume experiments. Four scaled experiments mimicking tidal landscape development were conducted in a tidal flume facility: two control experiments without vegetation, a third experiment with hydrochorous vegetation colonization (i.e., seed dispersal via the tidal flow), and a fourth with patchy colonization (i.e., by direct seeding on the sediment bed). Our results show that more dense and efficient channel networks are found in the vegetation experiments, especially in the hydrochorous seeding experiment with slower vegetation colonization. Further, an interdependency between abiotic and biotic controls on channel development can be deduced. Whether biotic factors affect channel network development seems to depend on the force of the hydrodynamic energy and the stage of the system development. Vegetation-flow-landform feedbacks are only dominant in contributing to channel development in places where intermediate hydrodynamic energy levels occur and mainly have an impact during the transition phase from a bare to a vegetated landscape state. Overall, our results suggest a zonal domination of abiotic processes at the seaward side of intertidal basins, while biotic processes dominate system development more towards the landward side.
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Kleine en grote verhalen van de Belgische Geologische DIenst - Petite et grande histoire du Service géologique de Belgique
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Wat vooraf ging: twee rivaliserende kampen - L'histoire préliminaire : Deux camp rivaux
