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In this introduction to the special issue on necrogeography and physical geography, a focus on landforms and landscapes is presented and applied to subdisciplinary areas, including geomorphology, climatology, biogeography, and soil science. The primary aim is to present past directions taken in the field by physical geographers and provide further areas for their potential engagement. The seven papers contained in this special issue are lastly conveyed in terms of their contribution to necrogeography as an applied physical geography in cemeteries, although not exclusively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even as it remains an informal term defining the emergence of humans as a force transforming Earth as a system, the Anthropocene is stimulating novel research and discussion across the academy and well beyond. While geography has always been deeply connected with the coupled human--environment paradigm, physical geographer's embrace of the Anthropocene still appears lukewarm at best. While there are good reasons to hesitate, including the fact that the Anthropocene is not yet, and might never be, formalized in the Geologic Time Scale, physical geographers have much to gain by embracing what is rapidly becoming the most influential scholarly discussion on human--environmental relations in a generation. This editorial was commissioned for the author's debut as Contributing Editor of Progress in Physical Geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Critical Zone is an interdisciplinary theme for environmental research that considers the near surface environment of the Earth and interactions amongst rock, soil, water, air, and living organisms. Critical Zone research initiatives in the United States (US) have met with great success, with multiple Critical Zone Observatories located in a variety of regional field settings at their core. These initiatives have allowed for enormous advances in addressing interdisciplinary environmental science questions based on team collaborations involving experts from various disciplines. The Critical Zone initiative in the US is now being extended to several other countries, but Canada has not been a participant in initial meetings involving various national funding agencies and researchers from different countries. Because physical geographers study a wide range of topics falling under the banner of Critical Zone science (including soils, hydrology, geomorphology, climatology, glaciology, biogeography), they are well poised to be active participants in national strategies for Critical Zone science. Suggestions are provided for moving towards a national strategy for Critical Zone science initiatives in Canada that connect to recent international developments. Vers une stratégie pour la science de la zone critique au Canada La zone critique est un thème interdisciplinaire de la recherche environnementale qui examine le milieu de la proche surface de la Terre et les interactions entre la roche, le sol, l'eau, l'air et les organismes vivants. Les initiatives de recherche en zone critique aux États-Unis ont connu beaucoup de succès grâce à de nombreux observatoires de la zone critique situés au centre de divers dispositifs d'études régionales. Ces initiatives ont permis d'accomplir d'énormes progrès en abordant des questions de science environnementale interdisciplinaire fondées sur la collaboration d'équipes impliquant des spécialistes de diverses disciplines. Les initiatives américaines en zone critique sont maintenant étendues à de nombreux autres pays, mais le Canada n'a pas participé aux premières réunions impliquant divers organismes nationaux de financement ainsi que des chercheurs de différents pays. Comme les géographes spécialisés en géographie physique étudient un large éventail de thèmes placés sous la bannière de la science de la zone critique (y compris les sols, l'hydrologie, la géomorphologie, la climatologie, la glaciologie, la biogéographie), ils sont bien placés pour participer activement aux stratégies nationales pour la science de la zone critique. Des suggestions sont faites dans le but d'adopter une stratégie nationale pour les initiatives concernant la science de la zone critique au Canada qui se rattachent aux récents progrès internationaux. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical geography has evolved a lot in France during the last twenty-five years. Geomorphology, a long time dominant, shares from now on its place with biogeography, climatology and hydrology. Today physical geography is largely approached as a whole, in interrelationship with the social phenomena, the policies of national development, the history of society. The reorientation of geography is visible.This evolution, which took place with difficulty in the 1980s, was due in particular to biogeographer Georges Bertrand and geomorphologist Jean Tricart. Physical geography is from now on integrated into the questions of national development, by means of resources (water, energy...), constraints, and risks, but also landscapes and patrimony. It implies in-depth knowledge of the working of the planet, and of the present processes characterizing ground surface, vegetation covers, climates, water and heritages. The role of societies in the evoked dynamics is important to define, and the impact of the environment on societies is also to consider. This « reoriented » physical geography which can, consequently, be defined in terms of environment or « geoenvironnement », must find its place beside ecology, whose opening in the French media dates back to the 1980s. Society is the main item of geographical analysis, as people living in the nature use it and sometimes damage it. Nevertheless geography and its environmental dimension do not consider man a systematic destroyer of nature. They reject any systematically pessimistic or backward-looking speech, and underline, by means of a rigorous analysis of the interrelationships nature/society, the need to establish sound diagnoses as for the state of the environment and the actions of societies on the environment.

This editorial is the product of the Progress in Physical Geography lecture at the April 2013 meeting of the Association of American Geographers. The paper was presented by George Malanson, the North American Editor, and the co-authors presented critiques based on a draft. Subsequently, the manuscript was developed and revised based on discussion at the meeting and additional exchange among the co-authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil moisture is a critical component of the earth system and plays an integrative role among the various subfields of physical geography. This paper highlights not just how soil moisture affects atmospheric, geomorphic, hydrologic, and biologic processes but that it lies at the intersection of these areas of scientific inquiry. Soil moisture impacts earth surface processes in such a way that it creates an obvious synergistic relationship among the various subfields of physical geography. The dispersive and cohesive properties of soil moisture also make it an important variable in regional and microclimatic analyses, landscape denudation and change through weathering, runoff generation and partitioning, mass wasting, and sediment transport. Thus, this paper serves as a call to use research in soil moisture as an integrative and unifying theme in physical geography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]