African Palaeoenvironments and Geomorphic Landscape Evolution

Since almost 25 years Professor Dr. Jürgen Runge (*1962) has worked as a Physical Geographer and Environmentalist on the evolution of tropical landscapes, former and recent environmental changes and on questions related to tropical and subtropical land use in subsaharan semi-humid and humid regions in Africa. After basic studies in Geography, Geology, Soil Science and Botany at the Universities of Giessen and Göttingen, he  specialized on West and Central Africa regions as an assistant Professor at the University of Paderborn. Since the 1990’s extended field work and scientific expeditions on the Late Pleistocene climate and vegetation in the Congo basin and neighbouring areas were undertaken. In 2000 he was appointed full Professor for Physical Geography and Geoecology with regional focus on subsaharan Africa at Frankfurt University. In 2003 he set up the ‘Center for interdisciplinary research on Africa’ (Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Afrikaforschung, ZIAF, www.ziaf.uni-frankfurt.de). In 2005 he tooks over the editorship of ‘Palaeoecology of Africa’. He is presently on leave (2007-2010) for assisting the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) on the topic of geological resources and governance in Central Africa.

Introduction; 1. How it all began; 2. Reconstructing Environmental Changes; 3. Climate Reconstruction Based on Fluvial Deposits; 4. A Sedimentary Record of Environmental Change; 5. Ecosystem Change During MIS 4 and early MIS 3; 6. The Potential of Phytoliths to Reflect Past Environmental Conditions; 7. Topographic and Hydrological Control of Gully Erosion Phenomena; 8. Gypsum in Desert Soils, Subsurface Crusts and Host Sediments; 9. New Findings on Palaeoenvironmental Conditions; 10. Palaeoclimate of Ondiri Swamp, Kenya; 11. A Cluster-Analysis-Based Climate Classification for NE Africa; 12. Climate and Palaeoenvironmental Evolution in North Tropical Africa; 13. An Assessment of the Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Natural Hazards in Central Africa.