This book examines relationships between climate-hydrological changes and other phenomena including land use and natural disasters during the Holocene and recent past. In particular, periods of rapid climatic shifts such as global warming and global cooling are examined through paleohydrological and other studies of various lake-catchment systems in East Asia, from Mongolia in the north to Taiwan in the south. A number of different research techniques are used in the work presented here, including sediment analysis and optically stimulated luminescence dating and the reader learns how the lake-catchment system functions as a proxy observatory for past and present environmental monitoring. The lake catchments studied by the authors of this volume are under similar climatic conditions, i.e., under the East Asia monsoon, with some systematic difference in climatic factors. Both proxy and observation data are available for the surrounding countries' provisions against natural disasters that are related to climate-hydrological events and readers will see how present instrumental observation data can be connected to past proxy data (sediment information) in the system.

Presents information about climate-hydrological changes in the Holocene and recent past through the study of several lake-catchment systems in East Asia (from Mongolia to Taiwan) Illustrates how the lake-catchment system functions as a "proxy observatory" for past and present environmental monitoring Provides some examples of present process understanding being used to handle past information from a lake-catchment system

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Present earth-surface processes and short- and long-term environmental changes inferred from lake-catchment systems.- Centennial-scale environmental changes in Terkhiin Tsagaan Lake, Mongolia inferred from lacustrine sediment: preliminary results.- OSL chronology of the sandhills of Xingkai Lake, northeast China and its implication for environmental changes since 200 kaBP.- Palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic changes of Northeast China: based on multi-proxy analysis on sediment from Xingkai Lake.- Palynological and charcoal s tudy of palaeoenvironmental changes in a sediment core from the Lake Xingkai in northeastern China since 27.7kaBP.- Reconstructing mid- late Holocene East Asian monsoon variability in the Jingpo Lake, Northeastern China.- Rapid environmental change of Jingpo Lake in Mid-Holocene: inferred from fluvial/lacustrine sedimentary facies transition.- Paleohydrological fluctuation of the Eurimji historical reservoir lake.- Late Quaternary Environmental changes of the Hwajinpo and Song ji hyo Lagoons on the Eastern coast of Korea.- Multi-proxy evidence for late-Holocene agricultural activities from coastal lagoons on the east coast of Korea.- Comparison of luminescence dating methods on lake sediments from a small catchment: example from Lake Yogo, Japan.- Possible age models for Lake Onuma lacustrine sediments based on tuffs recovered in three cores.- Recent eutrophication and environmental changes in the catchment inferred from geochemical properties of Lake Onuma sediments in Japan.- Reconstructing modern hydro-environmental fluctuations inferred from lacustrine sediment in Lake Onuma, Hokkaido.- Sedimentary response to artificial waterway tunnels in Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan.- Model study for response of river on tectonic activities: flume experiments for bedrock rivers affected by localized uplift.