Ivan Gams

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Ivan Gams

Ivan Gams (born July 5, 1923 in Šmartno pri Slovenj Gradcu , Kingdom of Yugoslavia ; † March 10, 2014 in Brezovica , Slovenia ) was a Yugoslav and Slovenian geographer and professor at the University of Ljubljana . His extensive oeuvre is particularly devoted to karstology and speleology and enjoys international recognition.

life and career

After primary school in his birthplace, Gams attended grammar school in Slovenj Gradec , Maribor and Ljubljana between 1937 and 1944 . In 1945 and 1946 he studied at various educational institutions and graduated in 1946 with a degree in geography , ethnography and national history at the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of Ljubljana . With his dissertation on the subject of Pohorsko Podravje - razvoj kulturne pokrajine (German: Pohorsko Podravje - Development of a Cultural Landscape ), he obtained his doctorate in January 1959. He then became an assistant and research assistant at the Geography Institute of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SAZU). In 1962 he moved to the SAZU Institute for Karst Research in Postojna . In 1966 he accepted a position at the Department of Geography at the University of Ljubljana, where he was appointed full professor in 1972 . Until his retirement in 1993 he was head of physical geography and head of the institute for several years .

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Research priorities

Ivan Gams specialized in the fields of karstology and speleology within physical geography . In addition, he dealt with mountain lakes, floods , the Triglav Glacier and the geomorphology of Pomurska , Bela krajina and Dolenjska . The geomorphological map of Yugoslavia on a scale of 1: 500,000 was created on his initiative . He also participated in the three sheets of a European map series of the International Geographical Union . Gams made important contributions to the regional geography of Slovenia and examined the geo-ecological and climatic division of the country. Climatologically, he specifically researched the temperature conditions in sinkholes , karst fields and basins . From 1985 he prepared a Slovenian monograph .

After 1960, Gams mainly dealt with the topic of karst . His most important research deals with karst hydrology and karst morphology. He studied cave climates particularly intensively, as well as the shape, formation and growth of stalactites . He studied the largest caves in Slovenia and led expeditions in the Triglav area in anticipation of a global depth record in the 1960s . In 1974 an international corrosion study began under his direction . In later years he devoted himself to surface changes in karst areas through agricultural use and ecological aspects such as karst protection.

Organizations

Gams was president of the Association of Slovenian Craftsmen and the Geographical Society of Slovenia and head of the Anton Melik Institute at the SAZU research center. As an editor and member of the editorial board of various Slovenian specialist journals such as Acta carsologica and Geografski zbornik, as well as various books and collections, he achieved the highest reputation. His work on Slovene karst terminology (1973) is particularly important. At the fourth International Cave Congress in Ljubljana and Postojna in 1965 he was a co-founder of the International Union for Speleology . In 1984 he founded an international geographic association for the study of human interference in karst regions, which held a first symposium in Postojna in 1987 . He was also a member of the European Academy of Sciences , Honorary President of the Yugoslav Geomorphologists , the Slovenian Geographical and Geomorphological Society and an honorary member of the Hungarian and Serbian Geographic Society.

Bibliography (selection)

Ivan Gams' bibliography contains more than 1100 published works, including around 700 scientific and professional publications. Around 300 of his writings deal with the topic of karst.

  • Kras: Zgodovinski, naravoslovni in geografski oris. Slovenska matica, Ljubljana 1974, 358 pp. (Slovenian).
  • The polje: The problem of definition. In: Geomorphol. , Volume 22, Issue 2 (1978), pp. 170-181. (English).
  • The origin of the term karst in the time of transition of karst (kras) from deforestation to forestation. In: Proceedings of the international conference on environmental changes in karst areas: Italy, September 15th - 27th, 1991, Quaderni del dipartimento di geografia 13, Università di Padova 1991, pp. 1-8. (English).
  • Environmental change and human impacts on the Mediterranean karsts of France, Italy and the Dinaric region. In: Catena, Suppl. (Giess.) No. 25: 59-98 (1993). (English).
  • Kras v Sloveniji v prostoru in času. Založba ZRC, Ljubljana 2003, 516 pages (Slovenian).

Awards

literature

  • Andrej Kranc: Proceedings of the International Symposium “Man on Karst”: September 23-25, 1993, Dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the academician Prof. Dr. Ivan Gams. In: Acta carsologica 24. (English).
  • Karel Natek (ed.): Fizična geografija pred novimi izzivi: Znanstveni simpozij ob 80-letnici akademika prof. dr. Ivana Gamsa. In: Dela / Oddelek za Geografijo Filozofske Faculty Univerze v Ljubljani 20 (2003). (Slovenian / English).
  • Ida Knez Račič, Mojca Mlinar Strgar & Janja Turk: Bibliografija akademika Ivana Gamsa. Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti , Ljubljana 2005, 100 p. Online PDF (Slovenian).

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d Andrej Kranjc: Ivan Gams. Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti , accessed on June 30, 2018 (Slovenian).