FLOODPLAIN LAKES AS A ROSETTA STONE FOR PALEOHYDROLOGY, PALEOECOLOGY, AND PALEOCLIMATOLOGY

Floodplains have long been a focal point of human civilization, drawing people in with their floral and faunal diversity, rich alluvial soils, and proximity to navigable waterways. Today, many of the world's major cities are concentrated in alluvial lowlands. The flux of water through these environments is often managed to mitigate high and low flows, but lowlands remain vulnerable to hydroclimatic extremes. Assessments of flood hazard can be improved by using natural archives to extend the temporal context of analysis, but only recently have sedimentary deposits in floodplain lakes been exploited for this purpose. In this presentation, I will discuss recent advances in the use of floodplain lakes to reconstruct hydrologic, climatic, and ecological changes in lowland environments. Drawing on recent and on-going projects, I will show how these long-term records can be used to establish the controls on hydrologic extremes, place recent extremes in a broader context, and improve assessments of flood hazard on low-gradient rivers. These examples serve to illustrate the value of sedimentary archives preserved in floodplain lakes to applied environmental problems along river corridors.