GM6.2 | Hydrometeorological, environmental and geomorphological processes in drylands: Quaternary to future perspectives
Hydrometeorological, environmental and geomorphological processes in drylands: Quaternary to future perspectives
Co-organized by CL1.2/HS13/SSP1/SSS3
Convener: Hans von Suchodoletz | Co-conveners: Yves Tramblay, Janek WalkECSECS, Pedro AlencarECSECS, Joel RoskinECSECS

Currently drylands are home to >40% of the world’s population, and many prehistoric and historic cultures developed in these regions. Drylands are characterized by limited water resources and are highly sensitive towards both human activities and extreme events such as droughts and floods, which affects regional water balances and geomorphic processes. Due to currently intensified climatic and human pressure such processes strongly intensified during the last decades, affecting the living conditions of local populations including freshwater availability from groundwater resources and water quality. However, the functioning of these processes and their feedbacks are poorly understood. To build up reliable future scenarios to achieve sustainable development goals in the future these processes and feedbacks need to be addressed in an interdisciplinary manner on timescales ranging from the Quaternary until today, as well as in future climate scenarios.
This session pools contributions dealing with past to future hydrometeorological, environmental and geomorphological processes understanding in drylands across a broad geographical range since the Quaternary studied on varied spatial and temporal scales. Besides case studies on individual regions and review studies, cross-disciplinary, methodical and conceptual contributions are especially welcome in this session.