The science concerned with understanding the form of the Earth’s land surface and the processes by which it is shaped, both at the present day as well as in the past (British Soc. Geomorphology). Since many landforms cannot fully be explained by present-day geomorphic processes, geomorphologists also consider the impacts of past events on the present-day landscape; the landscape is a physical system with a history (S. Schumm 2003). B. Rhoads and C. Thorne (1996) show geomorphology as having the potential to change character as it evolves through time. The process geomorphology approach focuses upon the dynamic elements of geomorphological, hydrological, geological, and ecological systems; see D. Ritter et al. (2001).

Harrison and Dunham (1998) TIBG 23, 4 stress that landscape change is dominated by uncertainties and probabilities, arguing that an idealist approach to geomorphology (that recognizes the primacy of consciousness) can better appreciate the world’s unpredictable and probabilistic nature. Lane (2001) TIBG 26 observes geomorphology pays attention to the ‘way in which the real becomes contingent to form the actual’; it is place-dependent. Harrison (2001) TIBG 26, 3 argues that process geomorphology is essentially reductionist, but that landforms are not amenable to reductionist explanations.

‘With humans becoming one of the Earth’s major modifiers, human-altered landscape systems are likely to be a prime focus of future research, tackling environmental issues such as deforestation and pollution. In turn, land-surface processes pose a suite of threats to human resources, through the extreme action of soil erosion, slope instability, and river and coastal flooding, and with humans increasingly impinging on the natural environment, hazards research will be of critical importance in most fields of geomorphology’ (Stewart in P. Hancock and B. Skinner, eds 2002).

Rhoads (1999) AAAG 89, 4 discusses the epistemological nature of knowledge in physical geography, the way in which this knowledge is connected with processes of enquiry and reasoning, the metaphysical assumptions and moral valuations underlying enquiry and reasoning, and the important commonalities and differences between human and physical geography, and between geography and other domains of knowledge. R. H. Grapes, D. R. Oldroyd, and A. Grigelis (2008) History of Geomorphology and Quaternary Geology is very well reviewed, but largely confined to Europe. For cultural geomorphology, see cultural turn.