Holocene Palaeoenvironmental History of the Central Sahara

The environmental setting within the Central Sahara was subject to considerable changes during Late Quaternary, mainly driven by major global climate variations, although human impact increased constantly since Early Holocene.

Such global events can be reconstructed with the help of reliefs, sediments and palaeosoils and their specific morphological, chemical and mineralogical properties. The project’s focus is to ascertain new and established data on climate variations and associated palaeoenvironmental changes within the Central Sahara and to systematically collate and correlate them to results obtained from the Afro-Asian dry land belt and adjacent areas. The joint analysis of Late Quaternary landscape development and present environmental conditions in the Central Sahara will result in the modelling of Late Pleistocene and Holocene palaeoenvironments, emphasising various aspects.

This book will be of interest to all concerned with environmental changes in desert ecosystems in the past and at present and related development problems of Saharan countries, especially Ecologists, Botanists, Earth scientists and Climatologists. It will be valuable for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates as a reference for review and overview articles as well as a source of information for new original manuscripts on the topic of Late Pleistocene and Holocene landscape evolution in the lower latitudes of Africa. Palaeobotanists, Palynologists, Geomorphologists and Quaternarists will equally find this edition useful for their work.

Roland Baumhauer (* 1956) received his Diploma degree of geography, geology and mineralogy in 1980 and his Ph.D. degree in 1985 from the University of Würzburg, Faculty of Geosciences. After his Habilitation in 1991 he was appointed to the University of Trier, serving as a Professor of Applied Physical Geography from 1991 to 2002. From 1996 to 2002 he held the position of Vice-President of the University of Trier and as an Interim-President from 1999 to 2000. In 2002 he was appointed to the Würzburg University, serving as Chair of the Department of Physical Geography and Dean of the Faculty of Geosciences from 2005 to 2007. He was elected as a Fellow of the Commission of Geomorphology of Bavarian Academy of Sciences. He has contributed some articles to the fields of geomorphology and palaeoecology of arid and semiarid regions, environmental history, environmental change, and application of geography to problems concerning the record of climate change and interactions between the environment and life.

Jürgen Runge (*1962) has worked since almost 25 years as a Physical Geographer and Environmentalist on the evolution of tropical landscapes, former and recent environmental changes and on questions related to tropical and subtropical land use in subsaharan semi-humid and humid regions in Africa. After basic studies in Geography, Geology, Soil Science and Botany at the Universities of Giessen and Göttingen, he regionally specialized on West and Central Africa as an assistant Professor at the University of Paderborn. In 2000 he was appointed as a full Professor for Physical Geography and Geoecology with regional focus on subsaharan Africa at Frankfurt University. In 2003 Runge and his colleagues from different scientific disciplines set up the ‘Center for interdisciplinary research on Africa’ (Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Afrikaforschung, ZIAF, www.ziaf.de) where he recently has the position of the Vice Director. In 2005 he tooks over the editorship of ‘Palaeoecology of Africa’. Since 2007 he is working as a consultant on extractive industries and lives in Bangui, Central African Republic.