geomorphology

Geomorphology is the scientific study of the Earth's surface processes and the landforms they produce. It seeks to understand how landscapes originate, evolve, and interact with climate, biology, and human activity. The discipline emphasizes the causes and rates of change, including weathering, mass wasting, erosion, sediment transport, deposition, tectonics, and volcanic activity.

Geomorphologists examine processes across scales, from microscopic surface textures to regional and continental landscapes, and over time from years to millions of years. Methods include field surveys, mapping, and quantitative analysis, aided by remote sensing, geographic information systems, and high-resolution topography. Dating techniques, sedimentology, and morphometric analyses are used to reconstruct landscape histories and energy budgets of environments.

Subfields address specific settings, such as fluvial (rivers and streams), glacial (ice-formed features), coastal (shoreline and nearshore processes), karst (limestone dissolution features), desert and arid landscapes, and periglacial and tectonic geomorphology. Applications include natural hazard assessment, land-use planning, resource management, watershed analysis, and paleoenvironment reconstruction, contributing to environmental monitoring and climate studies.

Geomorphology is an interdisciplinary field linking geology, geography, hydrology, soil science, and climatology. Its history spans the 19th and 20th centuries, with foundational work in landscape analysis and process-based theories that continue to evolve with advances in modeling and remote sensing.