21 years of British geomorphology

Abstract

A review of British geomorphology since 1960, the year in which the British Geomorphological Research Group was founded, covers a period in which changes have been as profound and as rapid as any in the history of the subject. Evaluation of these changes is not easy: the subject has grown to such an extent that it is no longer possible for any one person to keep abreast of the range of literature in any detail nor even to be aware of all the research actively being undertaken; and everyone's perception is coloured by their own experience, by the universities or other institutions in which they were trained or in which they have worked, and by the colleagues with whom they have had closest contacts. To understand the nature of the achievements and changes of the past 21 years, we need to ask such questions as: what was geomorphology like in 1960? Who have been the outstanding and influential figures of the period? What books or articles have provided the most fundamental contributions to the advancement of the subject? What changes have there been in the main directions of research? To what extent has the subject grown in numbers of workers and in output of publications? And finally, how does the geomorphology of 1981 in Britain compare with that of 1960? I British geomorphology in the early 1960sBy the beginning of the period under review, British geomorphology was already a thriving and well-established discipline. A Bibliography of British Geomorphology, one of the first publications of the BGRG (Clayton, 1964), claims to list all the articles and books by British geomorphologists or concerned with the British Isles up to 1960. There are some 2200 items, beginning with Hutton's Theory of the Earth with proofs and illustrations (1795). The major fields of interest (Figure 1) include regional physiography (17.9 per cent of all entries), glacial morphology (16.3 per cent), other aspects of the Pleistocene (14.7 per cent) and coasts (12.9 per cent). Threequarters of all the entries deal with the British Isles or parts of the British Isles. Increasing rate of publication in geomorphology is clearly shown by the fact that about 500 entries date from before 1940, whereas over 1700 were published in the next 22 years.

The global transformation of geomorphology

“…A Bibliography of British Geomorphology was one of the first publications of the BGRG (Clayton 1964), and claimed to list all the articles and books by British geomorphologists or concerned with the British Isles up to 1960; there are some 2200 items listed. Another objective source of information for the early part of the period was the Register of Current Research in Geomorphology, published by the BGRG in 1963 (Embleton 1983). Since 2006, the BGRG has been renamed as the British Society for Geomorphology (BSG).…”