Introductory Chapter: Current Practice in Fluvial Geomorphology: Research Frontiers, Issues and Challenges

Abstract

Over the last one and half century, the prime interest area of fluvial geomorphology has meandered from global system and local process [1]. Returning to the discipline’s critical role in regional-to-local scale problem solving [2], fluvial geomorphology has experienced awesome progress in understanding of the trends and patterns of riverine landscape dynamics [3, 4]. However, it is necessary to understand the current research interests of the fluvial geomorphologists amid the global challenges. In this direction, all regular research articles allied to fluvial geomorphology in one of the leading geomorphological journals, Geomorphology (ISSN: 0169-555X), are scrutinized for 2018. Among all the 329 regular articles published in 24 volumes (300–323) during 2018, 112 (34%) are within the discipline of fluvial geomorphology. Afterward, the subject matters of the selected articles are grouped into 10 broad themes (Table 1 and Figure 1). As this review work considers one single globally recognized journal and takes a single year as sample therefore, the result may not necessarily highlight all the current research progresses but obviously could detect the directions in which the subject is developing/inclining. While going through the title and abstracts of the 112 sampled research papers, we have grouped them quite readily into 10 broad themes (Figure 1) which are addressed further in turn by the focal words (Table 1). The theme ‘Fluvial sediment environment’ had the greatest number of papers counting 25 (22%); 20 (18%) fall within ‘Holocene Fluvial Chronology (Historical Channel change, Stratigraphy, Paleo Hydrology)’, 18 (16%) in ‘Modelling fluvial environment and application of advanced techniques’, and 11 (10%) in ‘Anthropogenic Controls’. ‘Fluvial morphology (Processes and forms)’ and ‘fluvial hydraulics’ include 7 (6%) articles each, while 6 (5%) fall under ‘(Neo)tectonics’, and ‘Gully and hill slope erosion’. Apart from these, 5 articles (4%) addressed Riverine ecology and 7 (6%) fall within ‘crosscutting fields’ (i.e. fluvial geomorphology in association with other branches of geomorphology). It is interesting to note that there is no article pertaining to ‘river management and restoration’ which is one of the focal themes in present research frontiers of fluvial geomorphology [5]. In consideration of the popular remark ‘Geomorphology is largely an intellectual child of the Twentieth Century’ [6], the review results show that fluvial geomorphology is continuously refocusing on process and forms and thereby making interface with other disciplines like sedimentology. Moreover, much of the research articles we have revisited for the present assessment are basically geomorphological