Geomorphological footprint in the Anthropocene: Landform transformation as a driver of changed process-response characteristics

Pastoralism and agriculture are one of the main drivers of land cover change and affect various components by influencing the process-response characteristics of ecological and geomorphological systems. Agrarian societies established in different ecozones at different times. Phases of increased human impact in Europe are the Greco-Roman period and the late Middle Ages. Significant land cover changes on a global scale established with the onset of colonialism. The extent of global human impact increased during the industrialization and accelerated rapidly after the WW II. The transformation of landforms was paralleled by interferences into most geomorphological systems. The rapid growth of the population and of urban areas resulted in an increasing need of raw materials and in the need to transport large quantities of materials. These interferences were associated with the extension of complex infrastructural measures. Particularly noteworthy in this context are interferences into the fluvial system such as measures for navigability and flood protection along rivers such as those along the Rhine River, but also changes of landforms due to mining and the diversion of rivers which resulted in new unforeseen hazards during extreme rainfall events such as the Ahr and Inde River flooding in July 2021. The examples show that human interferences on landforms and environment are acting largely through the areal extent of land use, infrastructure, urbanization, industrialization and mining and by the acceleration and modification of geomorphic processes which in turn result in multifold feedback loops and complex response in different geomorphic systems.