ABSTRACTS / RESUMES - Comitato Glaciologico Italiano

and features of various types, size, nature and forms. The
paper also lays emphasis on management of resources,
physical and human, to obtain a balanced and integrated
approach. The paper is exclusively descriptive and is supported
by the conceptual model of the above theme.
MICHAEL C. SLATTERY & PAUL A. GARES
Runoff and sediment production in a small coastal plain
watershed during tropical rainfall
Department of Geography, East Carolina University,
Greenville, NC 27858-4353, U.S.A.
Recent research has shown that soil erosion on the Atlantic
coastal plain is more rapid and extensive than was long believed
to be the case, but little is known about erosion processes
in the region or about the transport, storage, and ultimate
fate of eroded soil. A three-year project is currently
underway in a small agricultural basin at Clayroot, North
Carolina, the overall objective of which is to elucidate the
erosion processes and sediment delivery systems operating
within coastal plain catchments. The study combines extensive
field measurements of contemporary erosion and
sediment transport processes with examination of geomorphic
indicators of long-term erosion and deposition,
and includes water erosion, fluvial sediment transport and
storage, and aeolian erosion and transport. This paper reports
the results of measurements conducted during the
summer of 1996 during four tropical storm systems, namely
Tropical Storm's Arthur and Josephine and Hurricane's
Bertha and Fran. The data, though preliminary, indicate
rapid soil loss, both from individual fields and the basin
as a whole, during the storm events. Considerable erosion
occurred on fields planted with cotton. Serious erosion
on, and runoff from, fields of cotton is of interest because
these are relatively new crops in the region but the
area under cultivation is increasing. The fact that significant
erosion was recorded in several fields in an area where
topography and soils suggest a low erosion risk, casts
doubt on some assessments of the coastal plain as being a
stable, non-eroding landscape.
OLAV SLAYMAKER
Geomorphology and global environmental change
Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver,
British Columbia, V6T 122, Canada
In recent statements in the United States (Nrc 1993) and in
Canada (Canadian Geoscience Council, 1996) the role of
geomorphology in global environmental change has been
identified as a growing priority among earth and environmental
scientists. Nrc (1993) recognises the following high
priority research areas (not in order of priority):
1. Constructing models of the interaction between biogeochemical
and rock cycles through time
2. Fluid flow in sedimentary basins
3. Landform response to climatic, tectonic and hydrologic
events
4. Improving the monitoring and assessment of the nation's
water quantity and quality
5. Defining and characterising regions of seismic hazard
6. Defining and characterising potential volcanic hazards
7. Minimising and adjusting to the impacts of global environmental
change.
The Canadian Geoscience Council (1996) identified four
priority areas in the «earth environmental sciences»:
1. Natural geological hazards
2. Water supply and quality
3. Society related activities
4. Environmental and global change.
From the perspective of geomorphology these reports are
both encouraging and threatening. Encouraging in the sense
that the greatly increased profile of geomorphology is
acknowledged; threatening in the sense that the specific
contributions of geomorphologists are rarely made explicit.
There is a need for the International Association of
Geomorphologists to be more proactive in advertising its
own perception of the role of geomorphology in the earth
and environmental sciences.
lORAN LUDVIGSOLLID, IVAR BERTHLING,
BERND ETZELMULLER & STINE SAETRE
The rockglaciers on Prins Karls Forland,
Western Svalbard
Department of Physical Geography, University of Oslo,
p.o. box 1042, Blindern, N-03'16 Oslo, Norway
Rockglaciers are defined as creeping permafrost bodies,
partly super-saturated with ice. In contrast to most dynamic
ice-bodies, rockglaciers have low mass fluxes, leading
to build-up time spans of thousands of years. This makes
the forms as indicators for long-term. subaerial exposed periglacial
areas. However, knowledge of the mass input onto
the glacier, its dynamics and the mass flux through the glacier
are important for substantial conclusions of build-up
time and response to changing climatic boundary conditions.
On the northwestern tip of Prins Karls Forland, western
Spitsbergen (78°50'N 10 030'E),
a series of 20 rockglaciers
build a ten kilometres long continuos transition between
mountain cliffs and the strandflat area. The fronts of the
rockglaciers are up to 60 m in height and 500 111 in width.
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