Dr. Janek WALK
Tel.: +49 931 31-82411
E-Mail: janek.walk@uni-wuerzburg.de
Institute of Geography and Geology
Working group Geomorphology
Am Hubland
97074 Wuerzburg
Campus Hubland South
Geography Building
Room 226
Since 04/2023 Board member of the Early Career Scientist representatives, Geomorphology Division (GM) [ADD LINK: https://www.egu.eu/gm/ecs/], European Geoscience Union
05/2019 – 06/2022 Advisory Board, Young Geomorphologists [ADD LINK: https://www.dggm.org/wer-wir-sind/] of the German Society for Geomorphology
Topics
- Dryland geomorphology (fluvial, aeolian, coastal) and soils
- Quaternary geochronology and landscape evolution
- Human impact: River geomorphology, sediment budgets, mining
Methods
- GIS: Spatial analyses and geomorphometry
- Space- and UAS-borne remote sensing
- Terrestrial photogrammetry and laser scanning
- Chronosequences and morphochronologies
- Dating methods: Terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides (TCN), Schmidt-hammer exposure dating
- Soil science: Sedimentology and geochemistry
Regional
- Atacama Desert, North Chile
- Skeleton Coast, Namibia
- Andalusia, Spain
- Central Mongolia
- Northern Eifel / Euregio Maas-Rhein
- Lower Austria / Vienna Woods
As of 10/2024 Postdoctoral research fellow (Akademischer Rat), Chair of Geomorphology, JMU Würzburg
01/2023 – 07/2024 Postdoctoral research fellow / University Assistant, Department of Geography and Regional Research, University of Vienna
07/2020 – 12/2022 Postdoctoral research fellow in CRC 1211, subproject C02, Chair of Physical Geography and Geoecology, RWTH Aachen University
02/2017 – 06/2020 Doctoral student research associate in CRC 1211, subproject C02, Chair of Physical Geography and Geoecology, RWTH Aachen University
Degree: Dr. rer. nat.
Dissertation: “Alluvial fans along the coastal Atacama Desert – landforms, processes, and evolution”
10/2012 – 01/2017 Student assistant, Chair of Physical Geography and Geoecology, RWTH Aachen University
10/2015 – 01/2017 M.Sc. Applied Geography, RWTH Aachen University
Thesis: “Geoecological studies on arsenic contamination in the small-scale mining area of Nalaikh (Mongolia)“
10/2013 – 11/2016 B.Sc. Georesources Management, RWTH Aachen University
Thesis: “GIS-supported assessment of tsunami-endangered coastal areas on the basis of digital elevation models (DEM) – a comparison of methods using the example of Crete”
10/2011 – 09/2014 B.Sc. Applied Geography, RWTH Aachen University
Thesis: “Recent dust transport in Central Asia – survey of interregional transport pathways”
09/2021 Borchers Badge of the RWTH Aachen University (for the dissertation)
09/2020 Dissertation Award of the German Working Group for Geomorphology (now: German Society for Geomorphology)
11/2018 Friedrich-Wilhelm Award of the RWTH Aachen University (for the master’s thesis)
09/2018 Poster Award of the German Working Group for Geomorphology (now: German Society for Geomorphology)
09/2017 Springorium Commemorative Coin of the RWTH Aachen University (for the master’s studies)
2013–2016 Scholarship from the RWTH Aachen University Education Fund, sponsor: proRWTH
115 years of sedimentation in the Urft Reservoir
The sediments of Lake Urft represent a unique archive of human influence on the late Holocene sediment composition. The reason for this is that the sediments in the lake have been deposited almost undisturbed over the last 115 years. Due to construction work on the Urft dam and the inspection of the 2.7 km long Kermeter tunnel, which drives the Heimbach hydropower plant, the reservoir was almost completely drained in November 2020. This provided a rare opportunity to sample the deposits in detail and to photogrammetrically record the entire reservoir using an unnamed aircraft (also known colloquially as a drone, or UAS for Unoccupied Aircraft System). The work was carried out in collaboration with the Eifel Rur Water Board (WVER).
CRC 1211 – C02 – Transport and deposition
Due to the direct coupling of alluvial fans (AF) to the source area, they present quintessential depositional features and preserve responses of the sediment routing systems to palaeoclimatic variability, tectonic activity and base-level changes in their architecture and stratigraphy. However, the impact of autogenic controls governing the AF internal dynamics make it challenging to decipher these allogenic environmental controls. AF are widespread in the Atacama Desert from its arid margins to its hyperarid core and, thus, provide great potential to link and compare these morphodynamic systems with other existing regional palaeoenvironmental archives – of which many have been and are planned to be further investigated within the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centre 1211.
GEO-XR: XR for geographical spatial analyses
The project is part of the funding initiative ‘WUEDIVE - Digital Innovation in Teaching’ of the Centre for Scientific Education and Teaching (ZBL) and will deal with the possibilities of making landscape development processes, which often take place far too slowly for human perception (e.g. formation of river terraces, draining of marshlands), tangible in time-lapse and visually appealing with augmented reality techniques (VR and AR).
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Fog controls biological cycling of soil phosphorus in the Coastal Cordillera of the Atacama Desert. . In Global Change Biology, 30(1). Wiley, 2024.
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115 years of sediment deposition in a reservoir in Central Europe: Effects of the industrial history and environmental protection on heavy metals and microplastic. . In Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 49(11), pp. 3419–3436. Wiley, 2024.
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115 years of sediment deposition in a reservoir in Central Europe: Topographic change detection. . In Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 49(2), pp. 582–600. Wiley, 2024.
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Dune movement under climatic changes on the north‐eastern Tibetan Plateau as recorded by long‐term satellite observation versus ERA‐5 reanalysis. . In Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 48(13), pp. 2613–2629. Wiley, 2023.
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Pedogenesis at the coastal arid-hyperarid transition deduced from a Late Quaternary chronosequence at Paposo, Atacama Desert. . In CATENA, 228, p. 107171. Elsevier BV, 2023.
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Weathering under coastal hyperaridity – Late Quaternary development of spectral, textural, and gravelometric alluvial fan surface characteristics. . In Quaternary Science Reviews, 277, p. 107339. Elsevier BV, 2022.
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Arsenic distribution and pathway scenarios for sediments and water in a peri-urban Mongolian small-scale coal mining area (Nalaikh District, Ulaanbaatar). . In Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 27(6), pp. 5845–5863. 2019.
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Late Pleistocene alluvial fan evolution along the coastal Atacama Desert (N Chile). . In Global and Planetary Change, 190, p. 103091. Elsevier BV, 2020.
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Gradients in climate, geology, and topography affecting coastal alluvial fan morphodynamics in hyperarid regions – The Atacama perspective. . In Global and Planetary Change, 185, p. 102994. Elsevier BV, 2020.
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Testing the potential of K-feldspar pIR-IRSL and quartz ESR for dating coastal alluvial fan complexes in arid environments. . In Quaternary International, 556, pp. 124–143. Elsevier BV, 2020.
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Alluvial fans along the coastal Atacama Desert - landforms, processes, and evolution. Technical Report (PhD dissertation), . . PhD dissertation, p. 165. Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Aachen, 2020.
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Geomorphology of the coastal alluvial fan complex Guanillos, northern Chile. . In Journal of Maps, 15(2), pp. 436–447. Informa UK Limited, 2019.
