Large floods and climatic change during the Holocene on the Ara River, Central Japan

Abstract A reconstruction of part of the Holocene large flood record for the Ara River in central Japan is presented. Maximum intermediate gravel-size dimensions of terrace and modern floodplain gravels were measured along an 18-km reach of the river and were used in tractive force equations to estimate minimum competent flood depths. Results suggest that the magnitudes of large floods on the Ara River have varied in a non-random fashion since the end of the last glacial period. Large floods with greater magnitudes occurred during the warming period of the post-glacial and the warmer early to middle Holocene (to ∼5500 years BP). A shift in the magnitudes of large floods occurred ∼5500–5000 years BP. From this time, during the cooler middle to late Holocene, large floods generally had lower magnitudes. In the modern period, large flood magnitudes are the largest in the data set. As typhoons are the main cause of large floods on the Ara River in the modern record, the variation in large flood magnitudes suggests that the incidence of typhoon visits to the central Japan changed as the climate changed during the Holocene. Further, significant dates in the large flood record on the Ara River correspond to significant dates in Europe and the USA.

[1]  D. Cayan,et al.  A 5000-Year Record of Extreme Floods and Climate Change in the Southwestern United States , 1993, Science.

[2]  J. Knox.  Responses of Floods to Holocene Climatic Change in the Upper Mississippi Valley , 1985, Quaternary Research.

[3]  Y. Sakaguchi.  Some pollen records from Hokkaido and Sakhalin , 1989 .

[4]  I. Maejima.  Climate of little ice age in japan , 1983 .

[5]  P. Jones,et al.  Climate Since A.D. 1500 , 1992 .

[6]  Victor R. Baker,et al.  Paleohydraulic Interpretation of Quaternary Alluvium Near Golden, Colorado , 1974, Quaternary Research.

[7]  J. Costa,et al.  Developments and applications of geomorphology , 1984 .

[8]  I. Matsuda,et al.  Recent formations and Their Basal Topography in and around Tokyo Bay, Central Japan , 1977, Quaternary Research.

[9]  J. Knox.  Large increases in flood magnitude in response to modest changes in climate , 1993, Nature.

[10]  K. Richards,et al.  Global Continental Palaeohydrology , 1997 .

[11]  M. Tsukada.  Altitudinal and Latitudinal Migration of Cryptomeria japonica for the Past 20,000 Years in Japan , 1986, Quaternary Research.

[12]  N. Nicholls.  Long-term climate monitoring and extreme events , 1995 .

[13]  V. Baker,et al.  Palaeo and historical flood hydrology, Indian Peninsula , 1996, Geological Society, London, Special Publications.

[14]  G. Williams.  Paleohydrological methods and some examples from Swedish fluvial environments I. Cobble and boulder deposits. , 1983 .

[15]  A. Yamskikh.  Late Quaternary intra-continental river palaeohydrology and polycyclic terrace formation: the example of south Siberian river valleys , 1996, Geological Society, London, Special Publications.

[16]  Late Quaternary geomorphic development of mountain river basins based on landform classification : the Kitakami region, northeast Japan , 1994 .

[17]  M. Tsukada.  Vegetation in prehistoric Japan: The last 20,000 years , 1986 .

[18]  P. Carling.  A preliminary palaeohydraulic model applied to late Quaternary gravel dunes: Altai Mountains, Siberia , 1996, Geological Society, London, Special Publications.

[19]  P. Jones,et al.  Climatic variations over the last 500 years , 1992 .

[20]  H. Ohmori,et al.  Thermal Conditions Both of the Upper and Lower Limits of the Fagus crenata Forest Zone, and Changes in Summer Temperature from the Latest Pleistocene to the Middle Holocene in Japan , 1988 .

[21]  J. Costa.  Paleohydraulic reconstruction of flash-flood peaks from boulder deposits in the Colorado Front Range , 1983 .

[22]  Y. Ono.  Last glacial paleoclimate reconstructed from glacial and periglacial landforms in Japan. , 1984 .

[23]  K. Ando.  Holocene Paleoenvironments and the Highest Sea-level Based on the Diatom Assemblages in Minuma Lowland, Saitama Prefecture , 1986 .

[24]  G. Brakenridge.  Widespread episodes of stream erosion during the Holocene and their climatic cause , 1980, Nature.

[25]  M. Thorp,et al.  The response of geomorphic systems to climatic and hydrological change during the Late Glacial and early Holocene in the humid and sub-humid tropics , 1996, Geological Society, London, Special Publications.

[26]  J. Thornes,et al.  Palaeohydrology in Practice: A River Basin Analysis , 1987 .

[27]  I. Maejima,et al.  Climatic change during historical times in japan : reconstruction from climatic hazard records , 1986 .

[28]  T. Okada.  The Climate of Japan , 1932 .

[29]  M. Mann.  Little Ice Age , 2002 .

[30]  K. Inoue.  Downstream Change in Grain Size of River Bed Sediments and Its Geomorphological Implications in the Kanto Plain, Central Japan , 1992 .

[31]  K. Endo,et al.  Holocene Environmental History in and around the Paleo-Nagareyama Bay, Central Kanto Plain , 1989 .

[32]  V. Baker,et al.  Competence of Rivers To Transport Coarse Bedload Material , 1975 .

[33]  Murray Gray,et al.  Global Climates since the Last Glacial Maximum , 1994 .

[34]  T. Oguchi.  Landform Development during the Last Glacial and the Post-Glacial Ages in the Matsumoto Basin and its Surrounding Mountains, Central Japan , 1988 .

[35]  西岡 秀三,et al.  Global warming : the potential impact on Japan , 1998 .

[36]  T. Sugai.  River terrace development by concurrent fluvial processes and climatic changes , 1993 .

[37]  K. Endo.  Holocene stratigraphy and paleo-environments in the Kanto Plain, in relation to the Jomon Transgression. , 1982 .

[38]  T. Sugitani.  Processes of Holocene terrace formation in a steep gravel-bed river, Nikko volcanic area, central Japan , 1987 .

[39]  Seiji Yukimoto,et al.  Climate Change Projections , 1998 .

[40]  M. G. Winkler.  The late Quaternary vegetation and climate of China , 1993 .

[41]  K. Beven,et al.  Floods: hydrological, sedimentological and geomorphological implications. , 1989 .

[42]  T. Oguchi.  Differences in Landform Development during the Late Glacial and the Post-Glacial Ages among Drainages around the Matsumoto Basin, Central Japan , 1988 .

[43]  T. Oguchi.  Late Quaternary Geomorphic Development of Alluvial Fan-Source , 1994 .

[44]  Malcolm K. Hughes,et al.  Global-scale temperature patterns and climate forcing over the past six centuries , 1998, Nature.

[45]  T. Mikami.  Long term variations of summer temperatures in Tokyo since 1721 , 1996 .