This Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) project will send the principal investigator Dr. Liviu Giosan and postdoctoral researcher Dr. Andrew Ashton from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute to the Danube Delta region in Romania to survey the deposits of the recent disastrous Danube floods of 2005 and 2006. The U.S. researchers will study the sediment beds resulting from the 2005-2006 floods to obtain a good understanding of flood indicators in sediments of the delta. The deposits of the recent flood will be transformed and/or disturbed by physical and biological processes as time goes by, and as more time elapses, the deposits will be harder to clearly identify. Thus, the researchers intend to travel to the Danube Delta to conduct their research in Fall 2006.
The PI is collaborating with several Romanian scientists who have experience in the Danube Delta. Drs. Iuliana Armas, Stefan Constantinescu and Alfred Vespremeanu-Stroe, the main collaborators, are members of the Faculty of Geography at the University of Bucharest. They have been monitoring the flood and will participate in the field research together with doctoral, master's and bachelor's degree students from the University of Bucharest. The Romanian team has worked with the PI to plan the proposed research.
Intellectual Merit: The Danube River is the largest river in the Central and Southeastern Europe. Flood and drought hazards along the river directly affect 10 countries. The researchers involved in this project will survey the deposits of the recent disastrous Danube floods of 2005 and 2006. The survey will take place at strategic positions primarily at the apex of the Danube delta and secondarily on the river-dominated sector on the Black Sea continental shelf. Both of these locations integrate the signal of the entire Danube basin and provide the opportunity to extend the analysis to the longer period of the late Holocene, when the sea level change was not an important factor in sedimentation. During this time significant climatic intervals such as the Little Ice Age or Medieval Warm Period occurred, probably leading to changes in the river hydrology. Understanding the sedimentary markers of modern floods will provide the community with tools for this paleoreconstruction. It will also provide input parameters for modeling of the Danube discharge regime that will be undertaken in the future. In addition, in-depth understanding of the flood sedimentation of the Danube will contribute to the knowledge of floodplain and prodelta sedimentation and development.
Broader Impact: The Danube Delta is an area of special ecological importance, which had not attracted much attention from U.S. researchers. The floods of 2005-2006 were devastating to the area, and better understanding of the flooding behavior of the river has both scientific and societal value. This project supports two U.S. junior researchers in a well-founded intellectual collaboration with international partners.
