ABSTRACT
The main concept of William Morris Davis was to arrange landforms into a cycle of development. His legacy was a concern with historical theory, which lasted until the 1950s. By the early 1950s, the Davisian cycle had become more than simply a model of reality, and formed a paradigm within which geomorphological problems could be organised. Many geomorphological studies do not constitute experiments sensu stricto, particularly in the early stage of theory development. The new quantitative geomorphology has been very much concerned with elucidation of the relevant geomorphological processes and with considerations of the rates at which such processes operate. Another major result of the change in geomorphological emphasis has been a reduction in the spatial and temporal scales within which landforms are considered. Knowledge of such geomorphological indicators can provide a most significant base from which to assess and explain aspects of change.
