Deciphering the fluvio-social metabolism of the Upper Rhine area (DEMUR) - Factors and actors in the transformation towards a fluvial anthroposphere prior to the industrial period

人类的影响长期以来一直干扰着洪泛区的自然演变。虽然森林砍伐对沉积物运输和洪泛区动力学的间接影响已经得到了广泛的研究，但决定河流系统如何沿着轨迹和路径依赖演变的社会生态过程和反馈机制直到最近才进入科学辩论。我们使用河流-社会代谢的概念来说明人类和自然过程之间复杂的相互依赖关系，这些过程定义了自然河流系统如何过渡到河流人类圈。该项目的目的是破译沿着路径依赖和轨迹的河流社会代谢，并了解莱茵河上游地区河流人类圈的系统动力学。我们专注于三个具体方面及其相互依存关系：社会政治系统，气候动力学和遗留沉积物，整合社会和环境档案以及详细的实验室和地质统计分析。通过结合定量、半定量和定性方法，我们将社会科学和自然科学结合起来。我们试图在多个时空尺度上确定从自然洪泛平原到河流人类圈过渡的综合指标。我们的研究分析了从中世纪到1850年左右该地区工业革命开始的时期，重点关注可疑的过渡时期。我们假设，在这个河流-社会系统中，特定的社会-自然和政治星座，包括领土转移、经济开发、制度、冲突、气候变化和极端事件，以及河流洪水，决定了河流景观演变的路径依赖和轨迹，这些路径依赖和轨迹在洪泛平原的遗产沉积物记录中得到了体现。我们采用多学科的方法，整合了不同学科的专业知识，结合了历史、气候和地貌学的专业知识。在三个相互关联的工作包中，我们研究了1)行为者、社会政治系统和制度如何影响洪泛区的发展，2)区域气候变率和极端事件如何影响社会生态过程，以及3)自然和社会动态如何在洪泛区沉积记录中得到表达。综合这些不同的社会、气候和地貌结果，我们的最终目标是将我们的见解整合到破译河流-社会代谢中。最后，我们评估了我们的结果在多大程度上有助于建立这种动态的河流-社会代谢的经验，数值和多变量统计模型。

Human influence has long interfered with natural floodplain evolution. While the indirect effects of deforestation on sediment transport and floodplain dynamics have been extensively researched, the socio-ecological processes and feedback mechanisms that determine how fluvial systems evolve along trajectories and path dependencies have only recently entered the scientific debate. We use the concept of a fluvio-social metabolism to illustrate these complex interdependencies between anthropogenic and natural processes that define how natural river systems transitioned into a fluvial anthroposphere. The aim of the project is to decipher the fluvio-social metabolism along path-dependencies and trajectories and to understand system dynamics of the fluvial anthroposphere in the Upper Rhine area. We focus on three specific aspects and their mutual interdependencies: socio-political systems, climate dynamics, and legacy sediments, integrating social and environmental archives as well as detailed laboratory and geostatistical analysis. By combining quantitative, semi-quantitative and qualitative methods we combine social and natural sciences. We seek to determine integrating indicators for the transition from natural floodplains to a fluvial anthroposphere on multiple spatio-temporal scales. Our research analyses the period from medieval times until the onset of the industrial revolution in the region around 1850 with focus on suspected transition periods. We hypothesise that in this fluvio-social system, specific socio-natural and political constellations, including territorial shifts, economical exploitation, institutions, conflicts, climatic variability and extremes, as well as riverine floods, determined path dependencies and trajectories of fluvial landscape evolution that found their expression in the floodplain record as legacy sediments. We follow a multidisciplinary approach that integrates the expertise from different disciplines, combining historic, climatic, and geomorphologic expertise. In three interlinking work packages, we investigate how 1) actors, socio-political constellations and institutions influenced floodplain development, 2) regional climate variability and extreme events impacted socio-ecological processes, and 3) natural and societal dynamics found their expression in the floodplain sedimentary record. Synthesising these various strands of social, climatic and geomorphologic results, we ultimately aim to integrate our insights into deciphering the fluvio-social metabolism. Finally, we evaluate to which degree our results can contribute to model this dynamic fluvio-social metabolism empirically, numerically and multivariate-statistically.