Landforms, Geomorphic Processes and Climatic Change in Drylands

It has always been difficult to form general theories on how climatic changes affect landform evolution, because of the complex relationship between the energy inputs from climate and tectonics, surface processes and form-process responses. Landscape sensitivity varies widely in response to climatic and tectonic stimuli of different magnitude and frequency, and discrimination between the geomorphological effects of climate and tectonics remains problematical in many dryland regions. Landform criteria used to infer past climatic changes, such as dune fields, alluvial fans, river terraces and palaeochannels, continue to be questioned. Although the data on climatic change derived from landforms are sparser and generally of lower resolution than information from the sedimentary record, geomorphology continues to provide valuable correlative data on changing climates in the world’s drylands.