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The city of Ljubljana lies at the intersection of various geomorphological regions that have strongly influenced its spatial organization. Prehistoric settlements were built on marshland, a Roman town was built on the first river terrace of the Ljubljanica River, and in the Middle Ages a town was built in a strategic position between the Ljubljanica River and Castle Hill. The modern city absorbed all usable space between the nearby hills. This paper reviews some relief features in Ljubljana, their influence on the city’s spatial development, and urban geoheritage. The results indicate new possibilities for urban geoheritage tourism in the Slovenian capital and its surroundings.

Geomorphological research on glacial features in Slovenia has a long tradition; the first studies were published in the late nineteenth century by Bruckner. Evidence of glacial erosion and deposition is preserved in the Slovenian Alps and on the highest plateaus of the Dinaric Mountains, including traces of ice fields and ice caps with outlet glaciers on the edges and some valley glaciers. The prevailing bedrock in all the glaciated areas is limestone, forming complex glacio-karst morphological systems. Modern glacial reconstruction techniques have been applied in the last few years, focusing on the interpretation of palaeoglacial topography and local equilibrium-line altitudes. Both past and present studies, however, lack precise chronological frameworks for the glacial advances, which should be the main goal of future research on glaciation in Slovenia.

This paper presents the geomorphic activity in the badlands of Slovene part of the Istria peninsula, i.e., sediment production from steep bare flysch slopes (rockwall retreat), movements of flysch debris along erosion gullies, and geomorphic activity on talus slopes. Sediment production of flysch rocks was determined by measurements on erosion plots and totals around 80 kg/m2 per year on average, which means that steep bare flysch rockwalls retreat at a speed of 35 to 50 mm per year. The badlands not only contain flysch walls but also slopes already eroded by erosion rills and gullies. A dam in one of the erosion gullies with the catchment area of 0.1 ha captured 20 tons of debris in fourteen months. Characteristic for both sediment production on steep bare flysch slopes and movements of flysch debris along erosion gullies is a regressive tendency of these geomorphic processes from winter toward fall. Monitoring on talus slopes of the badlands revealed their dual character because erosion here alternates with accumulation.

In geomorphology flysch regions are well known for landsliding. In Slovenia, Eocene flysch is found in the south-western part of the country. In these low-lying Mediterranean regions landslides are frequent and permanent phenomena influencing both morphology and human society.The aim of the article is to show how landslide susceptibility maps may be applied in geomorphology. This study presents one of the first evaluations of the long-term geomorphic evolution using the relative landslide rate map and soil erosion data. Firstly, data on 800 landslides in a flysch region of Goriška brda Hills were used to evaluate landslide susceptibility. Landslide susceptibility was calculated by different models using the geographic information systems. Secondly, presumed landslide volume in a known reference period, calculated by the means of the landslide susceptibility map, was compared to the volume of eroded soil that had been measured on small-scale erosion plots. The results show that landslides are important morphogenetic factors due to their relatively frequent occurence.Since soil erosion is mostly limited to deforested and cultivated hilltops and mostly contributes to their lowering, landslides mainly transform lower parts of slopes. In some cases they may have significantly contributed to recent (e.g. post-Pleistocene) valley evolution, especially by transforming the upper-most parts of the valleys and by widening their lower reaches.