Lorenz King

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Lorenz King (born November 15, 1945 in Basel ) is a German-Swiss geographer. From 1984 to 2011 he was Professor of Physical Geography at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen (JLU). His main research interests are climate change and climate extremes with their consequences in polar regions , high mountains and arid regions of the world.

Life, academic career

King studied geography, geology, chemistry, botany and zoology at the University of Basel (course for high school teachers). As a pupil of Dietrich Barsch and Heinrich Zoller , he received his doctorate in the spring of 1973 with his thesis "Studies on the postglacial glacier and vegetation history of the Sustenpass area ". A Canadian government scholarship as a "postdoctoral fellow" at McGill University Montreal enabled King to undertake extensive research trips to the Canadian Arctic and Subarctic in 1975 and 1976. Intensive contacts with the leading Arctic experts and geographers Link Washburn (Seattle), André Cailleux (Quebec) and J. Ross Mackay (Vancouver) brought King the new focus on permafrost in polar regions and high mountains .

After his return he was a research assistant at the University of Heidelberg, habilitated in geography in 1982 with a thesis on "Permafrost in Scandinavia " and was appointed private lecturer .

In autumn 1984 he accepted the chair for physical geography at the Justus Liebig University in Gießen and taught in the fields of geomorphology and climatic geography . His regional research focus at JLU was China , the Caucasus and the MENA region . He retired in spring 2011. King was visiting professor at the following universities: East China Normal University (Wuhan), Nanjing University (Nanjing), Dongbei University of Finance and Economics (Dalian), and Tbilisi State University .

Act

One focus of his work since the 1970s has been climate change and its effects on glaciers and permafrost in polar regions and high mountains. Inspired by his research stay in Canada in 1975/76, he initiated an expedition of several weeks into a previously unexplored area of ​​the Canadian High Arctic in 1978 and published together with Dietrich Barsch on the results of this " Ellesmere Island Expedition". He was a founding member of the German Society for Canadian Studies and in 1983 of the International Permafrost Association (IPA). King then headed the German National Permafrost Committee of the IPA until 2011 and reported for more than 20 years as a representative of Germany in the IPA Council and the IPA newsletter Frozen Ground on national activities.

From 1985 the new focus “Climate change and floods in China” was added. Together with the flood protection authorities in Hubei Province , effective concepts for reducing soil erosion and the risk of flooding were developed and implemented as early as the mid-1980s. After the Sino-German Center for Science Promotion (CDZ) was founded in Beijing in 2000, German-Chinese CDZ cooperation groups carried out studies on the effects of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze. In addition to reducing the risk of flooding, the three gorges project resulted in huge measures to improve the infrastructure (railway network, highways, airports) in the previously underdeveloped central China.

Another focus of King since 2000 was the consequences of climate change in the Greater Caucasus and in the arid areas of the MENA region.

The effects of climate change on the environment and human activities are central to all of his research. In polar regions he researched this topic in Canada, Alaska, Scandinavia and the Antarctic Peninsula, in high mountains the Alps, the Greater Caucasus and the Tianshan ( Xinjiang and Kyrgyzstan ) formed research priorities.

Some of King's innovative work should be highlighted. In 1974 he was able to structure the cold phases of the post-ice age more precisely with his doctoral thesis initiated by the pollen analyst Heinrich Zoller, geomorphologically, pollen-analytically and using radiocarbon data, an approach that was then continued by other universities.

With the habilitation thesis (1983), extensive geophysical investigations (refraction seismics, geoelectrics, continuous soil temperature measurements) were carried out in four regions of Scandinavia in search of mountain permafrost. Building on this, the widespread occurrence of mountain permafrost in Scandinavia was postulated as a model. This was also recognized for Scandinavia as part of the 1988 Permafrost Conference and the EU project PACE (1998–2001).

University research on China in the field of geography was enriched by King in 1987 through several German-Chinese research projects. The approval of the first cooperation group of the German-Chinese science center CDZ in Beijing, which took place in 1999, also formed the basis for further successful cooperation groups at other universities in Germany (Kiel, Tübingen, Darmstadt), as well as for Markus Disse (TUM's 20 international partners) ) led SuMaRiO project.

Committee work

King was Managing Director of the Institute for Geography, Dean of the Faculty of Geosciences and Geography and a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for International Development and Environmental Research (ZEU) at the University of Giessen. He was on the editorial board of Permafrost and Periglacial Processes (PPP) magazine . He helped found the "Central Asian Institute for Applied Geosciences" (ZAIAG) in Bishkek and was on the advisory board of various research projects. In the EU project PACE (Permafrost and Climate in Europe) he headed Work Package-1, European Network of Monitored Permafrost Boreholes.

Publications (selection)

  • Lorenz King et al .: The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze: Aspects for evaluating a mega-project. - In: Gamerith W. (Ed.): Future region China and India . Passauer Kontaktstudium Geographie, pp. 51–70, 2012.
  • Lorenz King, Heike Hartmann, Marco Gemmer & Stefan Becker: The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze - A major construction project and its importance for flood protection. - Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen 5, pp. 26–33, 2004.
  • Lorenz King et al .: The three gorges project on the Yangtze - Giessen research group investigates the effects of the world's largest dam project. - Spiegel der Forschung 19/1, pp. 38–45, 2002. PDF
  • Lorenz King & Tong Jiang: Floods in the Yangtze Delta. - Spiegel der Forschung 11, 2, JLUG, pp. 2-8, 1994. PDF
  • Lorenz King, Xiaogan Yu & Tong Jiang: Water and wind endanger the landscape - soil erosion research in China - Spiegel der Forschung 2/91, JLU Gießen, pp. 6-13, 1991. PDF
  • Lorenz King (1988): Permafrost in the Arctic and High Mountains - Ecology and Development of Cold Areas. - Spiegel der Forschung 1/88, JLU Giessen, pp. 5-9, 1988. PDF
  • Lorenz King & Matti Seppälä: Permafrost thickness and distribution in Finnish Lapland - Results of geoelectrical soundings. - Polarforschung 57 (3), pp. 127-147, 1987.
  • Lorenz King: Zonation and ecology of high mountain permafrost in Scandinavia. - Geografiska Annaler, 68 A (3), pp. 131-139, 1986.
  • Lorenz King: Les limites inférieures du pergélisol alpin en Scandinavie - recherches en terrain et présentation cartographique. - Studia geomorphologica carpatho-balcanica XX, pp. 59-70, 1986.
  • Lorenz King: Permafrost in Scandinavia - Research results from Lapland, Jotunheimen and Dovre / Rondane.– Heidelberg Geographical Works 76, 174 pages, 1984, ISBN 3-88570-076-X .
  • Lorenz King: Qualitative and quantitative recording of permafrost in Tarfala (Swedish Lapland) and Jotunheimen (Norway) with the help of geoelectric soundings. - Zs. For Geomorphology, NF, Suppl.-Vol. 43, pp. 139-160, 1982.
  • Lorenz King: Studies on the post-glacial history of glaciers and vegetation in the Susten Pass area - Basel contributions to geography 18, 123 pages, 1974.

Publications as editor

  • Nana Bolashvili, Andreas Dittmann, Lorenz King, Vazha Neidze (Eds.): National Atlas of Georgia, 2018. 138 pages, 2018,  ISBN 978-3-515-12057-9 . Publishing information
  • Lorenz King & Giorgi Khubua (Eds.): Georgia in Transition - Experiences and Perspectives. - Publications on international development and environmental research. Peter Lang Verlag, 321 pages, 2009, ISBN 978-3-631-58977-9 .
  • Lorenz King (Ed.): Karl Ernst von Baer, ​​materials for the knowledge of the imperishable ground ice in Siberia. Unpublished typescript from 1843 and the world's first permafrost science. Introduced by Erki Tammiksaar. - Reports and works from the University Library and the University Archives Gießen, No. 51 , 66+ 234 pages, 2001, ISBN 3-9808042-0-8 . PDF (original contains color cards and color photos)
  • Lorenz King and Elisabeth Schmitt (eds.): Andrew Goudie: Physical geography - an introduction. Translated from English by Jürg Rohner and Peter Wittmann, 4th edition. - Spektrum Akademischer Verlag, Berlin, Oxford, 487 pages, 2002, ISBN 3-8274-1202-1 .
  • Dietrich Barsch & Lorenz King (ed.): Results of the Heidelberg-Ellesmere Island Expedition. (with English summaries and figure captions). - Heidelberg Geographical Works 69, 573 pages + 2 maps 1: 25,000, 1981, ISBN 3-88570-069-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Obituary Link Washburn
  2. ^ Obituary by J. Ross Mackay
  3. ^ Society for Canada Studies eV
  4. ^ Website of the IPA
  5. ↑ Seeber, Ch. & L. King (2010): Resettlements on the Yangtze - A Success? Extent and consequences of land use change in the Three Gorges region. - Mirror of Research No. 1/20: 50 - ö63. Full text (PDF) on geb.uni-giessen.de
  6. ↑ G. Furrer, M. Maisch and C. Burga: Overview of the late and post-glacial climate, glacier and vegetation history of Graubünden. - In: Dissertationes Botanicae 72 (Festschrift Welten), 1984.
  7. ↑ SuMaRiO project in Xinjiang (Northwest China)
personal data
SURNAME King, Lorenz
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Swiss geographer
DATE OF BIRTH November 15, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel