Landscape Evolution: Landforms, Ecosystems, and Soils (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780128217252)

Landscape Evolution: Landforms, Ecosystems and Soils asks us to think holistically, to look for the interactions between the Earth's component surface systems, to consider how universal laws and historical and geographical contingency work together, and to ponder the implications of nonlinear dynamics in landscapes, ecosystems, and soils. Development, evolution, landforms, topography, soils, ecosystems, and hydrological systems are inextricably intertwined. While empirical studies increasingly incorporate these interactions, theories and conceptual frameworks addressing landforms, soils, and ecosystems are pursued largely independently. This is partly due to different academic disciplines, traditions, and lexicons involved, and partly due to the disparate time scales sometimes encountered. Landscape Evolution explicitly synthesizes and integrates these theories and threads of inquiry, arguing that all are guided by a general principle of efficiency selection. A key theme is that evolutionary trends are probabilistic, emergent outcomes of efficiency selection rather than purported goal functions. This interdisciplinary reference will be useful for academic and research scientists across the Earth sciences.

Author: Jonathan D. Phillips
ISBN-10: 0128217251
ISBN-13: 9780128217252
Publisher: Elsevier
Language: English
Published: 05/06/2021
Pages: 356
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.36lbs
Size: 9.25h x 7.50w x 0.74d