Symbols or a legend used in geomorphological mapping varies significantly from map to map and place to place and they are not consistent. The legend and mapping symbols in geomorphological maps are likely to be chosen on the basis of purpose of the output, and hence the legend is not pretty standard with compared to that in other maps like geological. I am planning to compile a geomorphological map in an area where is largely covered with alluvial fills and fluvial erosional landforms. Is there any standard protocol or guideline or any good article on geomorphological mapping that could be useful for reading?
The first thing which comes to my mind and which is readily available - but not particularly focused on geomorphology but rather land resources surveys in general - is "SURVEYS, PLANS AND PEOPLE: A Review of Land Resource Information and its Use in Developing Countries" by Barry Dalal-Clayton and David Dent (1993), IIED - available at http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/7750IIED.pdf
In general it is a difficult question to answer. Even in terms of "usefull". Actually, my dear colleague Jan C. Otto together with Mike J. Smith published a paper on "Geomorphological mapping". It is assesable here: http://www.geomorphology.org.uk/assets/publications/pdfs/OnsitePublicationSection/16/2.6_geommapping.pdf
Jan worked on these issues for a long time and develloped some legend and mapping symbols. You'll find further reading in the refence section.
Dear Tilak,
A comprehensive book was recently published (in 2011) on the subject in the Elsevier's Series "Developments in Earth Surface Processes", n° 15, entitled "Geomorphological mapping: methods and applications". This is a collection of articles extensively covering methodological aspects and providing many mapping case studies. The web address of the book is:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/bookseries/09282025/15
Hoping this will help you,
Alain
Dear Tilak,
I have worked a lot in this issue. I have compiled references since geomorphological mapping starts to be used in geomorphologic surveys, data collection and results presentation. I have some reviews but mostly were published in portuguese language. Indeed the last publication on this matter (I didn´t agree with all the ideas in the book) belongs to Jan Otto and Mike Smith (eds.) published by Elsevier "Geomorphological mapping: methods and applications".
But what I can say to you is that there are no standard symbols and legends apply by everybody. That was the aim of the Subcommission on Geomorphological Mapping of the IGU, that started its activity in 1962. Although the work done, namely the publication of the "Manual of Detailed Geomorphological Mapping", edited by Demek, in 1972, establish the modern concept of geomorphologic mapping and represents in our point of view a sort of revolution in the way how geomorphologic studies are done, the "Project of the Unified Key to the Detailed Geomorphological Map of the World" for maps at 1:25 000 and 1:50 000 scales, failed completely its pourpose. The Unified Key was not applied by the different country researcher and we can say that, nowadays, are the objectives of each work, the habits of each researcher and personal conotations about graphic symbols, that prevail.
In my opinion, we are quite far from the adoption of commum methodologies and legends in the survey of landforms, deposits and processes. On the contrary, it seems that the prevailing tendency it's for the diversification of legends and procedures.
I can only confirm the previous answers. There is not a single strategy of legend. The reasons are twofold and partly given by your self: 1/ land relief is so much diversified that once you have to do only with accumulative forms in very flat relief, once well-pronounced forms caused by structural erosion, etc. It appeared to be impossible to reconcile all kinds of landforms in one legend; 2/ geomorphological mappers have diversified interests to be represented on their maps going from natural environmental conservation to potential earth resources, from pure scientific goals to applied interests, involving land use or representing subsoil lithologies, etc.
Maybe, to help you a bit, a very general procedure that is mostly applied and is in my opinion a well-working one: apply linear (black-an-white) symbols for description, colors for interpretation of landforms (their genesis) and color hue for their (relative) ages. Hope it is helpful to some extent. Success!
Hard to say more than above... Hum, maybe one thing: increase the signal/noise ratio by removing everything unnecessary. Information, just information...
The book, Geomorphological Mapping, by Smith, Paron, and Griffiths, and edited by me for Elsevier has the answers.
Cheers,
Jack Shroder
You might like to get hold of a copy of Gardiner and Dackombe's "Geomorphological Field manual' which has a compendious list of symbols covering geomorphological, geological and materials.
cheers
brian
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