Fluvial processes and landforms

Abstract

The period 1965–2000 saw a sustained increase in research and publications on fluvial processes and landforms. The trend towards generalization and/or mechanistic understanding, rather than site-specific history, continued. Research was multidisciplinary, with important contributions from hydraulic engineers, geologists and physical geographers and from experimental and theoretical approaches as well as geomorphological and sedimentological fieldwork. Rapidly increasing computer power underpinned new measurement methods, and greatly increased the scope of data analysis and numerical modelling. There were major advances in understanding the interaction of river process and form at reach scale, with growing recognition of differences between sand-bed and coarse-bed rivers. Field studies outside Europe and North America led to greater awareness of the diversity of river planforms and depositional landforms. Conceptual models of how rivers respond to natural or anthropogenic change in boundary conditions at different timescales were refined, taking advantage of studies of the response to land-use change, major floods and volcanic eruptions. The dating of sediments allowed greater appreciation of fluctuations in the incidence of extreme driving events over centuries and thousands of years. Towards the end of this period, research on bedrock rivers began to take off.