The present volume features contributions to the karst sessions held at the international Geolomorphological Congress in Tokyo August 23--28th 2001. Contributions cover a range of karst topics worldwide. Four of the six papers deal with the occurrence and analysis of karst on the japanese Islands and Niue Island, a raised coral atoll in the Pacific. Another contribution deals with Karst features and evidence bearing on the deciphering chaning environmental conditions in the Quaternary Western Desert of Egypt. The volume is rounded off by a paper considering the response of Karst systems to active tectonics and volcanism. A typology of of such geosystems is developed and described by means of field observation in type regions in Europe and Africa.