Impacts of climate change and human activities over the Holocene using multi-proxy analysis from lake sediment records

Abstract

Humans have modified their environmental context from millenia by altering the natural vegetation cover, aquatic ecosystems, influencing biogeochemical cycles, but large-scale and sustained land-use changes commenced only with the advent of Neolithic farming. Despite the widespread recognition of such early human-induced changes, the space, timing and magnitude of first detectable shifts unequivocally linked to human activities remain poorly-defined. A novelty in investigating the past environmental changes is the application of an integrative approach combining conventional and novel paleolimnological techniques as it offers an unprecented opportunity to investigate the extent, driving forces and impacts of climatic vs anthropogenic processes transforming the environment over longer time scales. High-resolution paleoenvironmental reconstructions are imperative in advancing the scientific understanding of the complex interaction between people, climate and nature. This project aims to provide a novel perspective on the Holocene environmental changes in a historically rich, though unexplored area (Romania, SE Europe) in relation with past climatic changes and human activity by applying integrative biogeochemical approaches to lake sedimentary archives.