All fluvial systems ultimately drain into alluvial basins, where the weathering products of their upstream drainage areas accumulate over a time-span varying from 10 0to 10 6years. Most silted-up alluvial basins are low-gradient deltas that are densely populated, because their high fertility maintains a high agricultural potential. Global warming due to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere will very likely affect the quantity and quality of both water discharges and fine-grained sediment fluxes to these alluvial basins. The long-term interplay between tectonics, climate and sea level determines the frequency, the timing, the allocation and magnitude of erosional and depositional events in fluvial systems. Erosional or depositional events are the direct consequence of changes in the quantity of discharge and sediment fluxes and thus will influence the sediment composition too. Therefore, a thorough fundamental study of the response of fluvial systems to climatic change is indispensable to understand the natural erosional and depositional dynamics and to assess possible future changes in the bulk geochemical composition of sedimentary sequences. In this respect, the expression of past climate changes in the composition of fluvial sedimentary records may serve to predict future fluvial response to climate change: the past as a key to the future.This thesis presents the research results for a case study of the River Meuse that combines geomorphological, bulk geochemical and forward modelling techniques. The study focuses on the impact of climate change on the natural composition of clastic river sediments, in casu variations in the bulk geochemical composition of fine-grained residual channel infillings on a temporal scale of 10 3-10 5years. The main topic was split up into two main parts, each dealing with individual queries. Part I addresses the first goal of the research, namely to determine which fluvial sediments are likely to register a palaeoclimatic signal, where these ...