PUBLIC TALK: The Inevitable Patterns of Rivers, Landscapes, and People

A public lecture by Dr Kyungrock Paik, Associate Professor School of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering, Korea University and 2016 UWA Gledden Short Stay Fellow.

Rivers, landscapes and people are deeply connected. Landscapes continuously evolve their form over time, albeit at a seemingly slow pace, with rivers emerging as self-organized features of a multitude of physical and biological processes. Despite the opportunity for uniqueness, rivers display ubiquitous patterns globally. It is postulated that landscape evolution has been significantly accelerated since humans appeared in the geological history. People have adapted to landscapes and rivers and actively change the environment. Perhaps surprisingly, given our technological capabilities, the macro-scale patterns of people in river landscapes appear to be ubiquitous. The knowledge scientists have obtained in recent years pose important questions: In which direction does the human-landscape system evolve? What is a sustainable way of landscape utilization given increasing population and resource consumption? Understanding our place in fluvial landscapes can help us move towards answering these questions.