Physical Module
City, Town or Village Name:
Geomorphology and Climatology
The following questions address the geomorphology and climatology of your landscape site. Geomorphology is the study of landscapes, including the landforms, soils, rocks, and surfaces of the earth, with the intent of discovering how the landscape formed, or has evolved over time. Climatology involves study of records of rainfall amounts and temperatures, which allow us to make a general description of the climate for an area. It also involves study of barometric pressure, wind speeds, fronts, and storms to explain the causes of weather and predict weather conditions.
1) How did your selected city, town or village's physical landscape form?
i) What are the geological processes that contributed to the formation of your site?
ii) What are the climatic processes that contributed to the formation of your site?
2) Describe the geomorphology of your selected site's area. You may include descriptions of the rivers/streams, swamps, deserts, topography, rocktype, and landforms.
3) What water resources exist on or near the site? Include a discussion on aquifers, which are natural water bearing rock units, and man-made water units such as reservoirs and water storage towers.
4) How has your landscape's physical form changed or evolved?
i) What climatic processes contributed to the change? e.g rainfall, hurricanes:
ii) What geophysical processes contributed to the change? e.g. river bank erosion, wind erosion:
iii) What human processes contributed to the change? e.g. mining, intensive agriculture, grading for development:
Natural Resources
The following questions address the natural resources of your landscape site. You should consider both the renewable resources, e.g. water, timber, soils, and animal life; and the non-renewable resources e.g. minerals and oil.
5) What natural resources were indicative of your site or were found near your site in the past? Discuss any relationship between resources or between those resources found on your site and those resources adjacent to your site in the past:
6) What natural resources are indicative of your site today? Discuss any relationship between resources or between those resources found on your site and those resources adjacent to your site currently:
7) What climatic processes contributed to any changes in the natural resources of the past versus the natural resources of today? e.g. glaciation, global warming, change in rainfall:
8) What biological process contributed to any changes in the natural resources of the past versus the natural resources of today? e.g. over foraging, insect infestation, dominant species, diseases such as Dutch elm disease):
9) What human processes contributed to any changes in the natural resources of the past versus the natural resources of today? e.g. mining, development, road construction, harvesting:
Resource Use
The following questions are intended to assist you in making connections between the resources you have identified in the previous questions and how these resources are utilized. Land cover is a term used to describe what covers the land. Basic land cover classes include urban, agricultural, shrub, grassland, forest, wetland and water. Land use is a term used to describe how the land is used. Land uses include urban use (transportation, commercial use, residential use, industrial use, and institutional use), agricultural use (crop production, grazing, vineyards, and orchards), open land, recreation (passive and active), timber production, hydropower generation. Note that one land cover can have many uses, for example forest land cover could be used for timber production, passive recreation, or for residential development.
Land Cover/Land Use
10) Describe the presettlement land cover of your landscape? This is the land cover that existed before the Europeans settled the area:
11) Describe the past land uses of the site. How did the presettlement land cover influence the land usage?
12) Describe the land uses that exist in your landscape today?
13) Discuss the relationship between cover types on your landscape and land use activities on your landscape?
Resource opportunities and constraints
For these last two questions, please critically think about the opportunities and constraints on your site as they relate to the site resources (past and present). While your comments may directly reflect how the landscape has been used and is being used, you may also want to comment on potential uses that were not realized. Furthermore, you may want to comment on any misuses of resources that you observe.
14) What physical characteristics of your landscape and natural resources of your site have affected or influenced the area's development?
15) What physical characteristics of your landscape and natural resources of your site have deterred (limited) its development?