Liviu Giosan
| Liviu Giosan | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1968 Vama, Suceava, Romania |
| Residence | Falmouth, Massachusetts, USA |
| Fields | Geosciences |
| Institutions | Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution |
| Alma mater | University of Bucharest, State University of New York at Stony Brook |
Liviu Giosan is a Romanian and American marine geologist studying the interactions between climate, landscapes and humans. In the public sphere, he initiated "Ad Astra", an association of scientists from Romania and Romanian diaspora, and has been actively involved in efforts to reform Romania's post-communist science and academia.
Studying the sediment transfer system through rivers into and inside the ocean, he focuses especially on river deltas and has worked in the Danube, Indus, Ebro, Mackenzie among other regions. His work includes contributions reported on by National Geographic on the so-called "Noah's Flood" or the Black Sea deluge hypothesis, New York Times, on the collapse of the ancient urban Indus Valley Civilisation and the long term impact of deforestation on the Danube Delta and the Black Sea, BBC on the drowning of river deltas under human-induced climate changes.
Giosan started his career studying the Danube delta. This work led to a classification of deltas highlighting the constructive role of waves and to the discovery of an asymmetric (polygenetic) end-member. These advances, together with novel ideas on river mouth morphodynamics, inspired approaches to numerically model river delta evolution and architecture. After producing the first accurate evolution model of the Danube Delta, Giosan explored the dramatic effects of early deforestation on the Danube and Black Sea as a type example of how humans have unintentionally affected the coastal ocean for millennia. Together with colleagues spanning disciplines from paleogenetics to engineering, he linked the rapid growth of the Danube delta in the last 2000 years to deforestation that started under the Roman Empire and accelerated during the Ottoman Empire's expansion in Europe. Paleo-DNA preserved in sediments indicated the ecosystem of the whole Black Sea has changed following the deforestation as Danube brought in more nutrients and silica from eroding soils. The magnitude of these changes for a continental-size system such as the Danube-Black Sea is a prime argument for an early Anthropocene epoch.
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