Surface processes continually reshape the environments that life depends on, with consequences that both sustain and disrupt ecosystems and societies. Weathering supplies nutrients and contributes to soil formation, while fluvial, glacial, and eolian erosion redistribute sediments and expose new surfaces, creating and sustaining habitats for microbial, plant, and animal communities. At the same time, long-term gradual changes such as soil erosion, sediment accumulation, slope instability, and coastal retreat can bring disruptive changes. These often overlooked “silent disasters” rarely make it into risk frameworks that tend to focus on catastrophic events, yet their cascading impacts on biodiversity, ecosystems, and human societies can be profound.
This session invites contributions that explore both the sustaining and disruptive roles of surface processes, with particular emphasis on how long-term, large-scale geomorphic processes ripple into living systems. We welcome case studies, modeling, and conceptual work from geomorphology, ecology, hazard science, and sustainability that examine how these processes ripple through living systems. By highlighting both their constructive and disruptive impacts, the session aims to demonstrate the central role of surface processes in shaping the resilience and adaptive capacity of ecosystems and societies.
Magdalena Lauermann, Susannah Morey