Landscapes

Landscapes

Landscape includes the physical elements of landforms such as (Ice-capped) mountains, hills, water bodies. The earth has a vast range of landscapes, including the icy landscapes of polar regions, mountainous landscapes, vast arid desert landscapes, islands and coastal landscapes, densely forested or wooded landscapes including past boreal forests and tropical rainforests, and agricultural landscapes of temperate and tropical regions.

              Landscape ecology is the science of studying and improving relationships between ecological processes in the environment and particular ecosystems. This is done within a variety of landscape scales, development spatial patterns, and organizational levels of research and policy. Landscape is a central concept in landscape ecology. 

Changing Landscapes

              The Moon`s landscape has barely changed over billions of years. The footprints left by Moon astronauts 30 years ago are still there, perfectly preserved in dust. The Earth`s surface changes all the time. Most changes take millions of years. Sometimes the landscape is re-shaped suddenly by an avalanche or a volcano. The Earth`s surface is distorted and re-from below by the huge forces of the Earth`s interior. The Earth`s surface is moulded from above by weather, water, waves, ice, wind and other ‘agents of erosion’.

              Most landscapes, except deserts, are moulded by running water, which explains why hills have rounded slopes. Dry landscapes are more angular, but even in deserts water often play a major shaping role. Mountain peaks are jagged because it is so cold high up that the rocks are often shattered by frost.

              An American scientist W.M. Davis (1850-1935) thought landscapes are shaped by repeated ‘cycles of erosion’. Davis`s cycles of erosion have three stage:-
1. Vigorous Youth,
2. Steady Maturity, and
3. Sluggish Old Age.

              Observation has shown that erosion does not become more sluggish as time goes on, as Davis believed. Many landscapes have been shaped by forces no longer in operation, such as moving ice during past Ice Ages.