A New Approach For Landscape Mapping

A new approach for describing the morphological character of a continuous landsurface is introduced. This new approach uses recent geocomputation advances as a fillip for reassessing geomorphological theory. During this paper three important components of the new approach that distinguish it from most pre-existing mapping frameworks are outlined. Firstly, the new spatial information application considers a landscape to be inherently complex, and so intends to describe diversity as well as to generalise. For this purpose the new spatial information application uses an information database approach, with multiple layers, filtering from raw analyses through to synthetic interpretations. This contrasts with approaches that only produce a single static classification map. Secondly, several geomorphic domains are considered, both separately and then in combination, to provide an overall landscape description. These domains are: the general shape of each location across a landscape, the attributes of each location in relation to relevant geomorphic processes, and the properties of each location in relation to its catchment position. The use of these three domains contrasts with frameworks that only consider general shape in a simplistic manner. Finally, for describing broad-scale morphology the new approach uses digital morphological data, made available through developments such as DEMs. This contrasts with frameworks that use surrogate information sources, such as photographic imagery, to deal with large mapping areas. The principle of using digital morphological data reflects the aim of the new application: to be a rigorous framework for the creation of physically meaningful landscape descriptions.