ABSTRACT
Geomorphologists are interested in rates of operation of processes for three main reasons: in the testing of models, in the provision of parameters and inputs for models and in practical problems of applied geomorphology. Commonly-held central model is that climate, through varying rates of operation of processes, controls the landforms of any region. This belief is extended to argue that the succession of landforms in a region reflects fluctuations in the relative dominance of different processes through time, as a result of climatic changes. The concept of process rates in geomorphology implies the change in an observed variable, which is designated to measure a process, by reference to another variable or a reference scale. The variable chosen might for example be the trajectory values of an object in space and time or, more loosely, the net result of all such movements, in terms of a large-scale change such as the amount of lowering of a landform in geological time.
