BGS’s landscape evolution modelling capabilities focus on advancing process-based understanding of how catchments and terrain respond to environmental change over timescales ranging from individual storm events to centuries. Cellular automata models are central to this work, integrating fluvial erosion and sediment transport with distributed surface- and groundwater processes.
A key area of work is the explicit coupling of groundwater flow with landscape evolution models (LEMs), enabling simulation of how subsurface storage, baseflow contributions and water-table dynamics influence runoff generation, slope stability and sediment flux. By representing groundwater–surface water interactions alongside channel processes, our modelling captures feedbacks between hydrology and topography that are often neglected in traditional LEMs, improving our understanding of sediment delivery, channel adjustment and long-term catchment development.
In addition, BGS is invested in extending its modelling capability to incorporate debris flow and rapid mass-movement processes within landscape evolution frameworks. By simulating slope failure initiation, sediment entrainment and downslope transport, these tools allow us to explore how extreme rainfall, groundwater conditions and topographical controls combine to generate episodic but geomorphologically significant events. Integrating fluvial, hill-slope and groundwater processes provides a more complete representation of sediment source-to-sink dynamics and enables the assessment of spatial patterns of erosion, deposition and hazard under changing climate or land-use conditions.
Together, these capabilities position BGS at the forefront of integrated landscape evolution modelling, delivering tangible societal benefits by strengthening the evidence base for environmental management and climate adaptation. Integrated LEMs help quantify erosion risk, sediment loading to rivers and reservoirs, and the potential for debris-flow hazards that threaten infrastructure and communities. By testing future climate and land-use scenarios, our modelling supports planners, regulators and water managers in designing resilient catchment strategies, protecting water resources and reducing long-term environmental and economic impacts associated with landscape instability and sediment-related hazards.
Contact
For further information please contact Dr Andrew Barkwith.