Reading the landscape

• DOI: 10.1177/0309133313490007
• Publication Date: 2013-06-12T04:12:55Z
• Authors: Gary Brierley; Kirstie Fryirs; Carola Cullum; Marc Tadaki; He Qing Huang; Brendon Blue
• Keywords: River management; Beach morphodynamics

Assertions of a ‘naughty world’ (Kennedy, 1979) point to the importance place-based knowledge in informing landscape interpretations and management applications. Building upon conceptual theoretical insights into geomorphic character, behaviour evolution rivers, this paper outlines an approach practice fluvial geomorphology: ‘reading landscape’. This scaffolded framework field-based explicitly recognizes contingent nature biophysical interactions within any given landscape. A bottom-up, constructivist is applied identify landforms, assess their morphodynamics, interpret interaction these features at reach catchment scales. Reading framed as open-ended generic set questions that inform process-form river landscapes. Rather than relying unduly on or representations landscapes suggest how world ‘should’ ideally look behave, appropriately contextualized, understandings can be used detect where local differences matter, thereby addressing concerns for transferability between locations representativeness sample reference sites. The provides basis scientifically informed efforts respect work with inherent diversity dynamics system.