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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]

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]

The article comments on the book "Climatic Geomorphology," by Julius Budel. It is a translation of the German book from 1977 "Klima-geomorphologie," Berlin-Stuttgart: Gebruder Borntraeger. For a mathematically skilled and modelling-orientated present-day geomorphologist hungry for numerical values and increasingly sophisticated software, it would be tempting to dismiss the book altogether as a long outdated which did not stand the test of time and does not meet recent criteria for evaluation. It is, however, true that Büdel's book abounds in bold, authoritarian statements and its many sections suffer from an unnecessary either/or approach in which Budel was right and other people were wrong.

The article discusses issues related coastal geomorphology in the U.S. It should be noted that there continues to be a clear trend away from the centrality of geomorphology and geography. It even appears that coastal geomorphologists are no longer publishing in major geomorphology journals. There is little evidence to suggest that coastal geomorphology is making significant contributions to the broader theoretical framework of geomorphology. The author offers some commentary on the position of coastal geomorphology within Geomorphology and Physical Geography, based on the progress made over the last three years.