A horizon scan for novel and impactful areas of physical geography research in 2023 and beyond

Abstract

This editorial reports on a horizon scan exercise that was undertaken to identify new frontier topics, new or emerging themes/concepts, or new philosophical questions of relevance to physical geography. Researchers with broad geographical and disciplinary scope, all of whom were members of the journal's editorial board or editorial advisory board, were invited to join a horizon scan panel. The horizon scan Chair canvassed panel members for ideas, resulting in an initial 32 independently proposed topics. Similar topics were merged by the Chair, and panel members were then invited to vote on and score anonymously the remaining 28 topics, bearing in mind the perceived importance/relevance and novelty for the discipline. The final ranking and sifting phase produced a list of 12 topics, which were categorised as being either new study areas or new epistemological frameworks for physical geography. In this editorial, we outline these 12 topics, some of which have been inspired by developments outside of the discipline, but we identify how potentially fertile contributions could be added by physical geographers. We discuss how new studies of extreme event geographies, the impacts of compound stressors, cross-system pollution and toxicity, the geomorphological basis of zoonoses, ancient environmental DNA, the projection and visualisation of landscape futures, and planetary sciences can all benefit from additional physical geography perspectives. We then consider the ways in which physical geographers may engage further with new approaches in personalised and internet-of-things monitoring, artificial intelligence, innovative technologies for teaching physical geography, the study of human-climate impacts, and the raising of the profile of physical geography thinking alongside other knowledge forms. We encourage more physical geographers to apply their unique skillsets and ways of thinking to these topics. The journal will welcome new submissions, or proposals for special issues, that address these topics from physical geographers and their colleagues.

Multi-Temporal Remote Sensing of Inland Surface Waters: A Fusion of Sentinel-1&2 Data Applied to Small Seasonal Ponds in Semiarid Environments

“…Remote sensing applications, as demonstrated in this study, may be useful for future research lines expanding the scope to quality assessments in open water bodies and across wide areas, providing new opportunities to address environmental challenges and aligning with SDGs (Bhaduri et al, 2016). A pressing need regards also novel epistemological frameworks to promote innovation in water resource monitoring and drought event detection, given the growing interest in multiple impactful areas (Anderson et al, 2023). Additionally, our modelling procedure could be beneficial for initiatives devoted to the reconstruction of hydrological cycles (Gleick, 1998), and to ameliorate renewable water resources in places without significant reservoirs, or to promote the planning of supplementary and alternative water bodies (Erwin, 2009; Morante-Carballo et al, 2022).…”