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# Geomorphometry and landform mapping: What is a landform?

## Details

**Authors** Evans, Ian S.

**Year** 2012

**Publisher** Geomorphology

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Geography

**Secondary disciplines** Geology

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2010.09.029) 
10.1016/j.geomorph.2010.09.029

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To ask how landforms and whole land surfaces should be defined and delimited, now that high-resolution digital elevation models supply abundant data.

### How they did it (methods)

Review and discussion of methods for extracting specific landforms and for classifying whole land surfaces from digital elevation models, illustrated with glacial cirques and drumlins.

### What they found (results)

Specific landforms differ in how easily they can be defined, and fuzzy boundaries, with a core and a periphery, are often appropriate. Allometric scaling fits the scale-specificity of many landforms. Classifying a whole land surface is harder than extracting individual landforms. In well-dissected terrain, homogeneous elementary forms are delimited mainly by breaks in gradient, aspect or curvature and are grouped into functional regions such as hill sheds. Plains and scoured surfaces resist most of these approaches.

## Commentary

### In short

A review of how landforms can be defined and delimited from elevation data. It finds that landform boundaries are often fuzzy, that many landforms are tied to a particular scale, and that small elementary units can be grouped into larger functional regions.

### Response

The paper bears on distinctions, since defining a landform amounts to drawing its boundary against its surroundings, and the author finds that these boundaries are often graded, with a core and a periphery, rather than sharp. It bears on systems in the grouping of elementary forms into larger functional regions. The fit is partial: the paper is a methodological review of landform definition, makes no claim about relationships or perspectives, and does not frame the boundary problem in general terms. It was filed from a summary of the abstract page, so the supporting passages should be checked.

**Patterns it shows** D, S

Shows the structure is there

**Added** 2026-11-02

**How to cite this** Evans, Ian S. (2012). Geomorphometry and landform mapping: What is a landform?. Geomorphology.