Third International Symposium on Cold Region Development: Extended Abstracts, Edmonton, Alberta, June 16-21, 1991

This volume contains the extended abstracts of all talks scheduled for presentation at the Third International Symposium on Cold Region Development, held in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 1991-06-16/20 (ISCORD '91). Following the 1990 call for presentations, the pertinent session chairmen and their associates subjected the submitted titles and short abstracts to technical scrutiny, as to their appropriateness for presentation. Authors of accepted abstracts then provided an extended abstract, which was edited by the Program Chairman and then retyped into a common format. The final product is therefore the result of a team effort. The Session Chairmen (Andy Jones, David Kinnaird, John Powell, Grant Ross, Les Sladen, Ryan Tajcner, David Wong and Tom Zimmerman) are thanked for their efforts both as organizers and scrutinizers of the technical aspects of the program, and for arranging the pertinent technical tours to complement the oral and written presentations. Without the dedicated and concerted efforts of Kathie Skogg and Joan Checholik this volume would never have been the elegant production that it is. The cover design was by Dale Hite. However, none of this would have been possible without the generous financial support for the preparation and publication of this volume from the National Research Council of Canada, which support is most gratefully acknowledged.

The ISCORD theme, 'cold region development', is almost all encompassing; depending on how it is defined, even space could be included. Certainly, the tropics would seem to be excluded, yet, in a future ISCORD, there may be presentations on ski resort development on Kilimanjaro. ISCORD meetings, so far, have been dominated by presentations from the northern hemisphere. This will surely change in the future as the Antarctic comes more into focus either through plans for development or please for preservation. For ISCORD '91, the decision was made to publish only extended abstracts, thereby leaving authors free to publish full papers elsewhere. Additionally, the rather burdensome task of editing and retyping was undertaken. This resulted in minimizing the impact of keynote contributions - which should really serve to tie together all papers delivered under the same topic. Experience suggests that more keynote speakers presenting significant review papers, together with shorter talks by other participants, and generally more focused session topics would result in a program with wider international appeal, as befits symposia attempting to cover development in cold regions.