Landscape analysis: derivation and rediscovery of ideas

Abstract

The Davisian triad of 'Structure, Process, and Time' still provides a useful framework for landscape analysis, but most of the processes and mechanisms invoked in the original scheme have long since been abandoned. The demise of Davisian assumptions has seen the appreciation of concepts and factors some of which were recognised long ago but were overlooked, others that are of more recent vintage but also have been marginalised, but all of which contribute to the understanding of landscape. Attention is directed to these under-appreciated factors, including structural features like lineaments and strain, to various landforms now shown to be tectonic, to the impacts of deep erosion and underprinting. Many familiar features were initiated the land surface but at the weathering front and by the processes operating there. Many landscapes (like those many where scarp recession is dominant) become comprehensible when the realities of unequal weathering and erosion are considered, as does the survival of very old landscape elements. Azonality and antiquity of form are more common than was previously realised.