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AppGeMa Working Group Website:
(the Applied Geomorphological Mapping Working Group)

Welcome to the main AppGeMa website, presented as a series of editable wiki pages. The working group (WG) has recently had its mandate extended for a second term allowing the completion of a variety of projects. With the activities and outputs of the WG continuing to grow, the materials will on this site have been added to and updated to reflect these changes.

The pages are editable by any user or visitor to this website so that we can pool the knowledge that the group as a whole possesses. There is a single login password which allows you to perform any editing on the site and this will have been emailed to you when you joined the mailing list.

We look forward to meeting and working with you during the lifespan of the working group.

Mike Smith and Paolo Paron

Introduction

Maps are one of the most appropriate and synthetic ways of showing the distribution of landforms, surface and near-surface deposits, the processes that act on landforms and the time of their action. Geomorphological maps are one of most important end products of investigations made by geomorphologists on the territory. Furthermore they are of great usefulness to many other professionals dealing with the landscape and landforms such as engineers, urban planners, soil and forest scientists, agronomists, land conservationists, etc.

Moreover, at the present moment, the rapid increase and development of digital technologies through topics such as the digital analysis of remotely sensed imagery and the widespread application of GIS has led to a paradigm shift in the collection, collation, analysis and presentation of geomorphological data.

Both within the geomorphological community and, increasingly, amongst other related scientific and professional communities, the importance of geomorphological maps is being realised. Furthermore, the increasing human pressure on the environment is pushing the need for a better understanding and planning of the landscape in developed and, to a greater degree, in so called emerging and developing countries. Maps can therefore be thought as a frontier, or a meeting point, at which geomorphologists, geologists and other professionals share their different knowledge of "terrain" and plan together a sustainable use of the environment.

Problems remain however, not least that geomorphologists have worked in contrasting terrain and morphoclimatic conditions, with several mapping systems currently in established us (Cooke et al., 1982). Unfortunately attempts to produce a unified system do not seem to have been widely adopted. A major role could be here played by the activity of a strong geomorphological mapping school, under the IAG umbrella.