Time:2017-06-19 (Monday) 11:40-13:00

Speaker:James T. Liu, Prof.

Institution:National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan

Venue:A3-206, Zhou Long Quan Bldg

Hosts:Xing Jian

Contact:Chen Jingyan, chenjy@xmu.edu.cn

Abstract:Coastal zone is a buffer between the land and sea. It is constantly under the combined influence of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere, and thus, a dynamic region. Within the coastal zone, close coupling exists between forcing and response in space and time. This leads to intense interactions between land and sea, resulting in highly coupled systems between physics and biogeochemistry. The land-sea interaction creates diverse coastal environments and habitats primarily controlled by the physical forcing, geography, and geology. Coastal diversity is manifested in coastal geomorphology and ecosystems. Therefore, coastal research is an interdisciplinary science. During the de-glaciation period, the modern coastal zone is facing two major threats. The first threat includes small-scale regional catastrophe such as typhoon disasters, dead zone, red tides, etc. The second threat includes large-scale environment degradation and habit loss due to the global eustatic sea-level rise. From the perspective of coastal geology, the rate of eustatic sea-level rise and the sediment flux from land jointly affect the long-term evolution of coastal depositional systems and the geomorphology, habitats, and ecosystems they contain. In such a scenario all the transitional environments on the land-sea boundary including river deltas, estuaries, salt marshes, tidal flats, coral and algae reefs will be severely impacted. This talk will close with a reflection on the role of human interference.