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Deciphering Dendroecological Fingerprints of Geomorphic Process Activity

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Dendroecology

Part of the book series: Ecological Studies ((ECOLSTUD,volume 231))

Abstract

The initial employment of tree rings in geomorphic studies was simply as a dating tool and rarely exploited other environmental information and records of damage induced by earth surface processes within the tree. However, these unique, annually resolved, tree-ring records preserve valuable archives of past process activity on timescales of decades to centuries. As many of these processes also represent significant natural hazards, understanding their distribution, timing and controls provides valuable information that can assist in the prediction, mitigation and defence against these hazards and their effects on society. This chapter provides an introduction to the topics, and illustrates it with three case-study examples, demonstrating the application of tree-ring records in studying earth-surface processes and illustrating the breadth and diverse applications of contemporary dendrogeomorphology. It also underlines the growing potential to expand dendrogeomorphic research, possibly leading to the establishment of a range of techniques and approaches that may become standard practice in the analysis and understanding of earth-surface processes and related natural hazards in the future.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful to the editors of this book for their invitation to write a chapter, and to the referees for constructive comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Climatic Change and Climate Impacts, Institute for Environmental Sciences, University of Geneva, 66 Boulevard Carl-Vogt, Geneva, CH-1205, Switzerland

    Markus Stoffel & Juan A. Ballesteros-Cánovas

  2. Dendrolab.ch, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Geneva, 13 Rue des Maraîchers, Geneva, CH-1205, Switzerland

    Markus Stoffel & Juan A. Ballesteros-Cánovas

  3. Geolab, UMR 6042 CNRS, Université Blaise Pascal, 4 Rue Ledru, F-63057, Clermont-Ferrand, France

    Christophe Corona

  4. Department of Physical Geography and Geoecology, University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czech Republic

    Karel Šilhán

Authors
  1. Markus Stoffel
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  2. Juan A. Ballesteros-Cánovas
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  3. Christophe Corona
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  4. Karel Šilhán
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Correspondence to Markus Stoffel .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos, Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural, Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, El Bolsón, Río Negro, Argentina

    Mariano M. Amoroso

  2. Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Lori D. Daniels

  3. School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Patrick J. Baker

  4. Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (IPE-CSIC), Zaragoza, Spain

    J. Julio Camarero

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Stoffel, M., Ballesteros-Cánovas, J.A., Corona, C., Šilhán, K. (2017). Deciphering Dendroecological Fingerprints of Geomorphic Process Activity. In: Amoroso, M., Daniels, L., Baker, P., Camarero, J. (eds) Dendroecology. Ecological Studies, vol 231. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61669-8_12

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