The deposition of sediment along river channels and floodplains is controlled by a range of natural and human-related factors, which are manifest in the type, amount, and style of sedimentation. Fluvial deposits therefore constitute vital archives for studying environmental change, spanning large spatial and temporal scales. Scientists use fluvial deposits to examine a variety of distinct types of environmental change, such as drainage-basin response to climate change, episodes of drought and flood, and the long-term impact of human agents on the landscape. These topics are investigated by a range of specialties, with geomorphology serving as a major focus of research. Geomorphology also constitutes a bridge to allied disciplines, such as sedimentology and archaeology. This award will help organizers to host a symposium that will bring together a diverse range of scholars to advance basic understanding of how fluvial deposits can deepen fundamental understanding of environmental history. The symposium will focus on several key areas of relevance to environmental history, including paleohydrology, geoarchaeology, and fluvial adjustment to climate change. The venue for the meeting will be the Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium (BGS), which has annually met since 1966 and is the oldest geomorphology symposium in North America. The 2008 BGS will be held at the University of Texas-Austin and will be titled "Fluvial Deposits and Environmental History."
The symposium will provide a venue for synthesizing the state of knowledge and for identifying new research frontiers. In addition to BGS's long tradition of contributing to geomorphology, this symposium will expand the boundaries of environmental history. The 2008 BGS is expected to have broader educational significance by exposing graduate students as well other professional participants to an environmental history approach. Attending and presenting research at international meetings provides a format for graduate students to interact and network with major figures in their field and is crucial for developing a research trajectory. The 2008 BGS will encourage graduate student participation through a sponsored poster competition and by substantially reducing registration costs. The 2008 BGS will promote scholarly diversity by providing financial support to international participants, and it will place special emphasis on encouraging participation of scholars from less-developed nations through subsidized registration costs. The 2008 BGS also will include scholars from a range of academic ranks, including a strong group of emerging scholars. To ensure that the ideas explored at the meeting become widely available to scholars within the environmental sciences, the papers will be published in Geomorphology, a major international peer-reviewed journal.
