- Project Leader : Haruyama Shigeko (Graduate School of Bioresources, Mie University)
- Collaborators : Kay Thwe Hlaing (Department of Geography, Yangon University)
- : Kin Kin Wai (Department of Geography, Yangon University)
- : Ando Kazuo (Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University)
Outline of Research
With enormous water related natural hazards in the lower part of Ayeyarwady River Basin, natural environmental change studies of the middle Holocene should be organized to include advances in fluvial geomorphology. Storm surges usually create specific sedimentation in delta morphology.This project will define the high resolution of deposition process of the delta area using core drilling. Through human activity such as agricultural development, land use and land cover has been changing over the watershed of the Ayeyarwady river. In the context of agricultural development and urban development in the river basin, the sedimentation process will be clarified to analyze the geomorphologic processes of large rivers in Monsoon Asia.
Description
There is a significant history of the kingdom of Myanmar and of expanding human activities, however, field study and research results of the natural environmental changes of the Ayeyarwady River Basin have been scarce in the past decades. In this study, we will try to do specific geological and physical geographical study to clarify disturbances over the land of the large river watershed, utilizing the deposition characteristics of high tides, tsunamis and storm surges and also look at remarkable flooding in the study area. We will also look at fluvial geomorphology, and conduct a high-resolution analysis for natural environmental change in the large delta area in Monsoon Asia. Geographers from Myanmar will also join the GIS study for land use and land cover changes of the river basin and will create scenarios that explain the history of land cover change. In this study, the historical events of natural disasters will be clarified in relation to physical and human geographical studies by looking at the the sequences of environmental change significant in the Monsoon Asia. We will also look at human and physical geographical theory to analyze the delta’s progressive Holocene history.
 Boring survey in Pathen |
 Analyzing boring sediment data |