A CONTINUING AND EVOLVING ROLE FOR QUATERNARY SCIENCE IN RECOGNIZING AND EVALUATING NATURAL HAZARDS DURING THE 21ST CENTURY (Invited Presentation)

As the world’s population grows from the current 7 billion toward median estimates of about 10 billion in 2050, humans and their geographic footprint will be increasingly exposed to the hazards of landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, volcanic eruptions, and sea-level change. The unique insights into the long-term spatial and temporal variability of natural hazards provided by Quaternary records are likely to become increasingly valuable for understanding these processes. At this critical juncture, Quaternary science is also on the cusp of a technological revolution using new tools to image, record, and model the Earth’s environment.

The rapid technological advances in recent decades have ushered in a new era for natural hazards research. In particular, advances in geospatial imagery, dating techniques, communications, and management of large datasets have opened new options for interdisciplinary partnerships that have changed the basic approach to mondisciplinary geoscience research. For example, increased geospatial coverage, resolution and analytical capabilities have vastly improved the discovery, monitoring and scientific understanding of hazards such as landslides, earthquakes and floods. LiDAR alone has allowed Quaternary scientists to investigate landforms from past events that were previously undetectable and to quantitatively test hypotheses regarding their formation and recurrence.

The technological revolution underway is potentially comparable to major shifts in scientific traditions in the past. Progress in Quaternary science over the last 200 years reflects the interplay among scientists from multiple disciplines using increasingly technical tools together with evolving paradigms for explaining the processes active in their environment. We reflect on a few examples from Chile and North America that suggest how this continuing interplay may develop over the 21^st century. The scientific and societal context of our ideas will invariably continue to evolve, but history shows that while improved tools help us acquire a greater quantity and variety of information about the earth, the key to their successful application is still the insightful interpretation of well-documented observations using the traditional and venerable scientific method.