Concepts with consequences in geomorphology: A fluvial perspective

Imagined concepts – made real by down-to-earth field verification, validated modelling, and using available technologies and empirical methods – are fundamental to research outcomes in geomorphology. This article reviews the functions that consequential concepts have served: as overall driving and embracing stimuli, or playing permissive roles at lower levels within projects; when they have come to the fore and declined in usage; how knowledge of them gets spread and tested; and where needs seem to be driving for the future. Within fluvial geomorphology there is demonstrably a multiplicity of conceptual approaches. Modern times also now involve greater external appraisal including financial and management control and research and teaching quality assessments. These are taking place in parallel with novel environmental changes that themselves pose new needs for hazard understandings and safeguarding. Challenges to address for practical reasons include forecasting the likely future geomorphic effects of climate change, tracking system impacts from the spread of human hardware across landscapes, and monitoring pollutant incursions into fluvial systems. Nevertheless, conceptual progress in understanding is also fundamentally dependent on advancing ‘blue skies’ research objectives. In a changing world, geomorphology has to pursue holistic goals and the multi-temporal and multi-scale spatial appreciation of landform development, and how this relates to other changing global systems, but also to grow what it conceives of doing for the public good.