Session 4

Integrating contemporary and palaeo datasets from the coastal zone: synthesis and visions for the future

Chair: John Anderson

The coastal zone must be identified as one area still with great potential for researchers of late Quaternary science. Amongst other reasons, it presents an obvious locality for tying together changes in the terrestrial and marine environment; it is far less researched than many terrestrial archives and far more exploitable than the open ocean. However, obtaining well dated, high quality, and high resolution palaeo-climatic and environmental data where local impacts can successfully be isolated from the regional and global signals is not easy from such highly dynamic systems. These problems make it increasingly difficult to obtain funding for palaeo-research under modern day stress toward policy-led research goals. Research proposals must indicate widespread applicability, often span-disciplines (e.g. climatology, archaeology, geology, geomorphology, geochronology), be informative concerning modern day/future climatic and environmental problems, and relevant on wide spatial scales. This session hopes to invoke discussion, highlight novel ways of overcoming some of the problems highlighted in the earlier sessions and demonstrate future potential for palaeo-research in the coastal zone. Papers that fit into the following categories are therefore encouraged: large-scale multi-proxy investigations, coastal modelling studies (past, present and future), multi-disciplinary studies, key oversights with current approaches, innovative techniques for palaeo-research and palaeo-research for management and policy purposes. Papers dealing with future directives for coastal research, personal viewpoints and coastal review papers are also encouraged.

Key Questions: How can we, as coastal researchers market our research to funding bodies? How can we persuade them that we can overcome the difficulties highlighted in sessions 1 and 2 with coastal research? Being one of the most densely occupied region on Earth; what are the implications for future human interactions? What is the potential for integrating the palaeoenvironmental, archaeological, geomorphological, geological etc. records of climate and environmental change to provide context for models of future climate change?