Badlands and gullying

Abstract

Badlands have fascinated geomorphologists for the same reasons that they inhibit agricultural use: lack of vegetation, steep slopes, high drainage density, shallow to non-existent regolith, and rapid erosion rates. Badlands appear to offer in a miniature spatial scale and a shortened temporal scale many of the processes and landforms exhibited by more normal fluvial landscapes, including a variety of slope forms, bedrock or alluvium-floored rills and washes, and flat alluvial expanses similar to large-scale pediments. Although badlands evoke an arid image, they can develop in nearly any climate in soft sediments where vegetation is absent or disturbed. © 2009 Springer Netherlands.