Landscape Development During a Glacial Cycle: Modeling Ecosystems from the Past into the Future

Abstract

Understanding how long-term abiotic and biotic processes are linked at a landscape level is of major interest for analyzing future impact on humans and the environment from present-day societal planning. This article uses results derived from multidisciplinary work at a coastal site in Sweden, with the aim of describing future landscape development. First, based on current and historical data, we identified climate change, shoreline displacement, and accumulation/erosion processes as the main drivers of landscape development. Second, site-specific information was combined with data from the Scandinavian region to build models that describe how the identified processes may affect the site development through time. Finally, the process models were combined to describe a whole interglacial period. With this article, we show how the landscape and ecosystem boundaries are affected by changing permafrost conditions, peat formation, sedimentation, human land use, and shoreline displacement.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-013-0407-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

From Site Data to Safety Assessment: Analysis of Present and Future Hydrological Conditions at a Coastal Site in Sweden

“…Available shoreline displacement modeling results (see SKB 2010 for a discussion) show that new land areas will be created outside the present coastline during the considered time period. Lakes and streams are formed in depressions in the former sea bottom and will undergo the same succession, from lakes to wetlands and possibly further to agricultural areas or forests, as can be observed in the present land areas (Lindborg et al 2013). In the model development presented here, future shoreline locations and landscape succession are considered, together with associated changes in regolith distribution and stratigraphy (due to processes such as wave action and sedimentation), climate, and vegetation.…”

“…This means that some long-term processes that usually can be ignored in model development are potentially of importance in the hydrological modeling. In particular, the Forsmark site is situated on the Baltic Sea coast at a location where shoreline displacement takes place at a rate implying that this process needs to be taken into account within the time frame under consideration (Lindborg 2010; Lindborg et al 2013). Available shoreline displacement modeling results (see SKB 2010 for a discussion) show that new land areas will be created outside the present coastline during the considered time period.…”

Requirement of the assessment strategy for biosphere in mature safety cases for nuclear waste repositories – Finland case

“…Similar levels of presentation of the biosphere have also been applied in the most recent Swedish assessments (e.g. Avila et al, 2013;Lindborg et al, 2013), supported by an extensive site characterization programme as well as data analysis.…”

The Importance of Eolian Input on Lake-Sediment Geochemical Composition in the Dry Proglacial Landscape of Western Greenland

“…1) to assess how the potential influence of eolian material on the sediment geochemistry varies depending on distance from the ice sheet. Two-Boat Lake is currently the main focus of an extensive drainage basin-scale ecosystem study (Clarhäll, 2011;Johansson et al, 2015a;Johansson et al, 2015b), and both the geochemical record in general, and the eolian record in particular, will be vital information to place the present-day conditions into a longer time perspective and when creating scenarios for future landscape development (Lindborg et al, 2013).…”