Conclusion

Themes Identified

Enormous changes in geomorphology over the last century include plate tectonics, the revolution in Quaternary science, quantitative processoriented geomorphology (Goudie, Chapter 2), and automated landform classification (Oguchi and Wasklewicz, Chapter 13), as new instruments have produced an increasingly complex picture of the world (Church, Chapter 7). Such changes mean that models cannot easily be extended from one environment to another, such as temperate to tropical environments (Thomas and Kale, Chapter 26); links with, and awareness of, other disciplines are increasingly significant as in regolith study (Taylor, Chapter 16), and some geomorphologists incline toward the mainstream of geophysical science (Church, Chapter 7). Links with other disciplines occur because geomorphologists are increasingly part of a team in applied projects (Downs and Booth, Chapter 5), results of the increasing ability to propose estimates of dates now have implications well beyond geomorphology (Brown, Chapter 11), and geomorphological research can lead to feedbacks to other disciplines in the way that stratigraphic approaches adopted from geology have had to be modified (Mather, Chapter 29). Geomorphologists now offer environmental problem solutions that for most of the 20th century were left to engineers (Kondolf and Piegay, Chapter 6).

Many branches of geomorphology identify themes which merit further consideration. Although technology alone will not replace the need for conceptual ingenuity (Rhoads and Thorn, Chapter 4), data innovations can be central to informing ways in which geomorphological models will develop in the future (Odoni and Lane, Chapter 9), and it is necessary to increase the fields in geomorphology to which GIS analyses can be applied (Oguchi and Wasklewicz, Chapter 13). Further applications of nonlinear dynamics to geomorphic systems should illuminate the process–history problem (Huggett, Chapter 10) and a major future challenge is in increasing the scale of experiments to more nearly simulate real-life conditions and of upscaling the results of experiments to the field scale and integrating them into models of landscape evolution (Robinson and Moses, Chapter 17).

New emphases recently highlighted include the unity of geomorphology (Richards and Clifford, Chapter 3), with the prospect of a unified theory in particular branches such as coastal geomorphology founded on morphodynamics and using models firmly based on field experience (Woodroffe, Cowell and Dickson, Chapter 24). Plate tectonics re-stimulated research, providing an elegant framework to bring together tectonics and climate, as two key factors in landscape [Page 578]evolution (Bishop, Chapter 28). Geomorphological mapping is now seeing something of a renaissance and the ability to handle, manipulate and analyse large, parallel, datasets will begin to be realized (Smith and Pain, Chapter 8). Applied geomorphology, or more broadly geomorphology to be applied (Crozier, Bierman, Lang and Baker, Chapter 32), can support development programmes, in the tropics for example (Thomas and Kale, Chapter 26), although there has been greater awareness of the cultural bias pervading applications of geomorphic research (Kondolf and Piegay, Chapter 6) which can now be improved by expanding the role of geomorphology in environmental problem-solving: the goal is not the control or manipulation of the natural environment, but rather maximizing of ecosystem services (Downs and Booth, Chapter 5). Reconceptualization, necessary in both hillslope hydrology and mass movement studies, representing a move from simplistic, process–response models to detailed, integrated representations of complex system behaviour (Petley, Chapter 20), could provide a more integrated view of the inter-linkages between inorganic processes and microorganism, plant and animal activity (Viles, Chapter 14); focus on understanding and managing the impacts of humans on rivers (Pizzuto, Chapter 21); and enable glacial geomorphologists to accomplish a vertical integration of findings to permit a scalar incorporation of processes at differing scales, so that process mechanisms can be clearly understood from the micro to the megascale (Menzies, Chapter 22). Although use of transfer functions has meant that modern environmental ranges of particular organisms can be used to quantitatively recreate the palaeoenvironments of Quaternary populations, multi-proxy approaches can be used to pinpoint more accurately the causes of identified changes in the Quaternary (Mather, Chapter 29).

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