British Society for Geomorphology

British Society for Geomorphology
Abbreviation BSG
Formation 1958
Type Learned Society
Headquarters Kensington, London, UK
President
 Mike Kirkby
Website http://www.geomorphology.org.uk

The British Society for Geomorphology (BSG), incorporating the British Geomorphological Research Group (BGRG), is the professional organisation for British geomorphologists and provides a community and services for those involved in teaching or research in geomorphology, both in the UK and overseas. The society’s journal, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms is published by Wiley-Blackwell and online access is available free to members.

Mission

The mission of the British Society for Geomorphology is to support scientific excellence in geomorphology through:

Annual General Meeting and Conference

The Annual Conference of the British Society for Geomorphology (BSG) is an international Open Conference. This Annual Meeting stimulates debate on new developments and advances in Geomorphology, and is a forum for emerging approaches to solve key challenges throughout pure and applied Geomorphology.

The Annual Conference for 2013 will be held at the Royal Holloway, University of London, 9 – 11 September 2013.
The conference theme is "Geomorphological response to environmental change"

Earth Surface Processes and Landforms

Earth Surface Processes and Landforms is the flagship international journal of the BSG, edited by Stuart Lane (Managing Editor) and five Associate Editors. The Journal publishes original research papers, Earth Surface Exchanges (shorter articles, commentaries, reviews and discussion papers) for rapid publication, technical communications and book reviews across all branches of geomorphology. In July 2012, the revised impact factor for the journal rose to 2.432 (articles published in 2011) which is a 15% increase on the previous year.

History

The BSG can trace its beginnings back to a meeting in Sheffield in 1958 where British geomorphologists gathered together to organise a Landform Survey of Britain. By 1959 this group appears to have been referring to itself as the British Universities Geomorphological Research Group. This short-lived group agreed, at its second annual meeting, to disband itself and voted unanimously (all 19 of them) to constitute the British Geomorphological Research Group (BGRG). The first BGRG AGM was held on 1 October 1960.

Morphological mapping schemes, emphasising slope, were the subject for discussion at early meetings of the BGRG. Time consuming to undertake, such schemes produced information about form but not about the processes or the origin of land forms. These schemes evolved in the 1970s to produce geomorphological maps of the UK. Several articles published in the Geographical Magazine in 1975 and 1976 explained the landform maps produced for all parts of Britain. In 1985 the BGRG celebrated its first twenty five years by hosting the first International Geomorphology Conference in Manchester which led to the formation of the International Association of Geomorphology.

In 2000, 40 years of the BGRG were celebrated by returning to Sheffield where it all started. Of those 19 geomorphologists who, by their action, can be regarded as the founders of the BGRG, which now has an international membership of around 700, nine attended this 40th Anniversary Meeting. One of them, Tony Orme, presented the Frost Lecture.

In 2006 the BGRG changed its name to British Society for Geomorphology (BSG). The new Constitution stated that the object of the Society shall be the advancement of the science of geomorphology, in research, in all levels of education, and in its practical application.

Chairs of the group include:

References

    External links