Research

Ongoing

• Reconstructing the paleoenvironments of highland societies in Iran from sediment archives of Holocene climate and landscape change. Subproject within the SPP 2176. Funding: DFG (KE 818/9-2)

Completed

• HolMeCl (The Holocene Mexican Crater Lakes and Climate). Funding: F.R.S-FNRS

Publications

• Rantala, M., Israde-Alcántara, I., Safaierad, R., Mattielli, N., Tylmann, W., Smol, J. P., Grooms, C., Lepoint, G., Francus, P., Metcalfe, S., Etmański, P., & Fagel, N. (2026). Increasing lake primary production and organic carbon sequestration in tropical Mexican lakes during the past century. CATENA, 273, 110448. 10.1016/j.catena.2026.110448

• Fagel, N., Rantala, M., Safaierad, R., Tylmann, W., Etmański, P., Pellenard, P., ... & Israde-Alcántara, I. (2026). Climate forcings on sedimentary fluxes in Lake Santa Maria del Oro (west-central Mexico) over the last 1500 years. Quaternary Science Reviews, 384, 110005. 10.1016/j.quascirev.2026.110005

• Safaierad, R., Israde-Alcántara, I., Rantala, M., Domínguez-Vázquez, G., Mohtadi, M., Schefuß, E., ... & Fagel, N. (2025). Late Holocene hydroclimate variability and human–environment interactions in the Cuenca Oriental, Mexico: multiproxy evidence from Lake Alchichica. Quaternary Science Reviews, 369, 109618. 10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109618

• Rantala, M., Israde-Alcántara, I., Safaierad, R., Tylmann, W., Lepoint, G., Francus, P., ... & Fagel, N. (2025). Anthropogenic increase in organic carbon production and burial in two tropical Mexican crater lakes. Science of The Total Environment, 971, 179041. 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.179041

• Fagel, N., Israde-Alcántara, I., Safaierad, R., Rantala, M., Schmidt, S., Lepoint, G., ... & Metcalfe, S. (2024). Environmental significance of kaolinite variability over the last centuries in crater lake sediments from Central Mexico. Applied Clay Science, 247, 107211. 10.1016/j.clay.2023.107211

• Safaierad, R., Matthews, R., Dupont, L., Zolitschka, B., Marinova, E., Djamali, M., ... & Matthews, W. (2023). Vegetation and climate dynamics at the dawn of human settlement: multiproxy palaeoenvironmental evidence from the Hashilan Wetland, western Iran. Journal of Quaternary Science, 38(8), 1289-1304. 10.1002/jqs.3557

• Heydari-Guran, S., Benazzi, S., Talamo, S., Ghasidian, E., Hariri, N., Oxilia, G., Asiabani, S., Azizi, F., Naderi, R., Safaierad, R., Hublin, J.J., Foley, R.A., Lahr, M. M. (2021). The discovery of an in situ Neanderthal remain in the Bawa Yawan rockshelter, west-central Zagros Mountains, Kermanshah. PloS one, 16(8), e0253708. 10.1371/journal.pone.0253708

• Sharafi, S., Kamangir, H., King, S. A., & Safaierad, R. (2021). Effects of extreme floods on fluvial changes: the Khorramabad River as case study (western Iran). Arabian Journal of Geosciences, 14(12), 1140. 10.1007/s12517-021-07459-8

• Shaikh Baikloo Islam, B., Chaychi Amirkhiz, A., Valipour, H., & Safaierad, R. (2020). Study on the Effects of the Mid-Holocene Climatic Changes on Sialk III Societies in North Central Iran Based on Environmental Sedimentology of Mafin Abad, Islamshahr. Journal of Archaeological Studies, 12(3), 143-166. 10.22059/jarcs.2021.239133.142465

• Safaierad, R., Mohtadi, M., Zolitschka, B., Yokoyama, Y., Vogt, C., & Schefuß, E. (2020). Elevated dust depositions in West Asia linked to ocean–atmosphere shifts during North Atlantic cold events. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(31), 18272-18277. 10.1073/pnas.2004071117

• Safaierad, R., Azizi, G., & Maghsoudi, M. (2018). The role of changes in the large-scale atmospheric systems in the evolution of the late Pleistocene and Holocene climate of the Zagros Mountains. Quaternary Journal of Iran, 4(3), 253-271. 10.22034/irqua.2018.702074

• Davoudi, M., Azizi, G., Mozaffarian, V. A., Safaierad, R., & Salmani, D. (2015). Fossil pollen grains of Lake Parishan from the viewpoint of paleoclimatology. Quaternary Journal of Iran, 1(3), 265-280. 10.22034/irqua.2015.701871

• Khoshakhlagh, F., Safaierad, R., & Salmani, D. (2014). The Synoptic analysis of flood occurrence in November 2011 in Behbahan and Likak cities. Physical Geography Research, 46(4), 509-524. 10.22059/jphgr.2014.53001

• Safaierad, R., Azizi, G., Mahammadi, H., & Alizadeh Lahijani, H. (2014). Reconstructing the Holocene and Late-Pleistocene Climate Changes of the Central Zagros Using Palynological Evidence of the Hashilan Wetland. Journal of Geography and Environmental Hazards, 3(3), 1-20. 10.22067/geo.v3i3.38429

• Azizi, G., Arsalani, M., Arsalani, E., & Safaierad, R. (2013). Reconstruction of Spring-Summer Maximum Temperatures Based on a Regional Chronology (1750-2010) in the Western Ridge of Central Zagros, Iran. Geography and Environmental Hazards, 1(4), 7-8. 10.22067/geo.v1i4.20199