Organised by the Joint IGU-IAG Commission/Working Group on Geomorphology and Society: Past, Present, and Future, this session aims to discuss the dualism of the relationship between geomorphological processes and people, and how this has developed over time.
This session is targeted at providing a platform for scientists with common interests in geomorphology and, in particular, the complex and integrated nature of the relationship between landforms, geomorphological processes and societies. As such, we are inviting contributions that focus on the two-way interactions between geomorphological processes/landforms and human activity. These should show how the various factors of the physical environment interact with the anthroposphere, and, in turn, how population and individuals may affect (and change) these factors. As a corollary, contributions may center on interrelationships between man and the landscape, or human-landscape relations, with mutual interaction.
In this context, topics of different fields may be addressed in the session such as landform evolution, landscape sensitivity and resilience in the overall context of the interrelation between geomorphology and society, geohazards, geoheritage and conservation, geomorphological responses to (and evidence for) environmental change, and applied geomorphology.
Possible key concepts may include the concept of space and the concept of time, which involves the paradigms of dynamical systems, nonlinearities, chaotic behaviour and even panarchy in geomorphological and social systems, including cultural landscapes and landscape conservation and heritage. Moreover, issues of scale and hierarchies may be addressed, and methods and applications of dynamic rather than equilibrium ideas and metaphors.
Contributions should provide new insights how to conceptualize, analyse, model and/or interpret such two-way interactions between geomorphological processes/landforms and human activity in the past, present or future. While case studies are welcome to underpin the overall string of arguments, they should be framed by and embedded in methodological approaches and concepts to enable transferability and further scientific discussion.