Heritage is a complex concept, culturally constructed and under discussion, and arbitrarily divided into natural and cultural components even if this distinction is often not beneficial for its conservation and management (e.g. World Heritage). The artificiality of this division clearly shows in the concepts of geological and cultural landscape. The first, Geological Landscape, primarily focuses on the physical aspects of a territory, such as the landforms and natural processes; the second, Cultural Landscape, is defined by the variety of cultural elements caused by short- or long-term anthropogenic activities. We observe and admire many landscapes that have been altered by humans – the so-called “cultural landscapes” – which in fact represent relationships between physical and anthropogenic components that interacted. Until now, the link between geodiversity – in particular landform geodiversity – and geoheritage, geological landscape and cultural landscape, is not fully addressed.

Therefore several issues should be addressed:
a) How to link geological environments, components, phenomena and processes and their variety with people, landscape and culture in a multi-disciplinary approach?
b) How to value the combination of natural and cultural perceptions of landscapes with respect to implementation of geoheritage at different scales?
c) The role of landforms in the concept of geodiversity,
d) Methods for geodiversity studies in landscape studies,
e) Standards for assessing landform significance from the geodiversity point of view,
f) Linkages between geodiversity, geoarcheology, geotourism and geoheritage,
g) The role of GIS in the development of research on geodiversity and geoheritage.

We invite in particular oral contributions and posters on the following themes :
Relationships between geodiversity, the physical environment and cultural elements of landscapes and/or geoheritage,
New insights in the geodiversity of landforms in different types of relief, from lowland to mountain environments. All geographical scales are considered, from the local to the global scale,
Contributions investigating theoretical aspects of geodiversity, with emphasis on landforms, including conceptual and computational problems, as well as applied contributions with examples from different morphogenetic domains and specific landforms characteristics,
Analytical and synthetic approaches of an integrated assessment of landforms/landscapes and geodiversity by means and methods of geoinformation (GIS),
Links between geo-cultural landscapes and biodiversity, re-naturalization,

Emphasis will be on modern (new) tools and original viewpoints. A selection of the studies presented will be considered for publication in a special issue of a relevant international journal.

The UN Assembly declared 2015 the International Year of the Soil, for which reason contributions on soil heritage, soil diversity and relationships with cultural heritage issues are particularly welcome. The 2014 UNESCO World Heritage Panel called for full revision of geological studies and clarification of Geological World Heritage and Geopark status. This reflects the above stated issues and themes and presents the geoscience community with an opportunity to have a greater impact in decision making.
This session is co-organized by the International Association of Geomorphologists' Working Groups on "Landform Assessment for Geodiversity" and "Geomorphosites".