Geomorphic connectivity and its application for understanding landscape complexities: a focus on the hydro‐geomorphic systems of India

Geomorphic processes operate at multiple spatio-temporal scales and different levels of hierarchy. It is therefore nec-essary to understand the linkages of landscapes across various scales and levels to gain insights into their interactions and feedbacks.Connectivity is an emergent property of the hydro-geomorphic systems, and it is gradually evolving into a unifying concept in geo-morphology. The connectivity approach has the potential to be applied extensively to diverse hydro-geomorphic systems of India tounderstand their complexity as well as for designing effective management practices for river systems and wetlands, optimizing waterresources for agriculture, and monitoring and restoration of habitats. Studies on connectivity, particularly in geomorphic context,have been growing steadily in India, albeit at a much slower pace compared to the global trends. This article undertakes a brief over-view of the global developments particularly in terms of providing some clarity among the different types of geomorphic connectivityand their inter-relationships and feedbacks. We then take stock of the connectivity research in India in recent years as applied in dif-ferent hydrogeomorphic systems across the country. We utilize a number of Indian case studies to illustrate the important develop-ments and applications of connectivity concepts, and also present future perspective of this important field with special relevance toIndia.