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Factors Controlling Landform Development

The document discusses factors that control landform development, including rock composition, relief, geological structure, climate, exogenetic agents, energy, biological activities, and human activities. Rock composition determines erosion and weathering rates. More relief leads to faster erosion. Geological structure, such as folds and faults, influence landform development. Climate affects chemical and biological weathering through temperature, precipitation, and humidity. Exogenetic agents like water and wind directly shape the landscape through erosion. Energy sources include internal convection and external factors like temperature variation. Vegetation increases chemical weathering while its absence increases erosion. Human activities such as agriculture, construction, and mining alter landforms.

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Geography Dept YIMS
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2K views3 pages

Factors Controlling Landform Development

The document discusses factors that control landform development, including rock composition, relief, geological structure, climate, exogenetic agents, energy, biological activities, and human activities. Rock composition determines erosion and weathering rates. More relief leads to faster erosion. Geological structure, such as folds and faults, influence landform development. Climate affects chemical and biological weathering through temperature, precipitation, and humidity. Exogenetic agents like water and wind directly shape the landscape through erosion. Energy sources include internal convection and external factors like temperature variation. Vegetation increases chemical weathering while its absence increases erosion. Human activities such as agriculture, construction, and mining alter landforms.

Uploaded by

Geography Dept YIMS
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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FACTORS CONTROLLING LANDFORM DEVELOPMENT

 As we know that landform is small to medium size of the parcel ( 3D structure) of
the earth's surface. Some examples of landforms are Mountains, Plain, Plateaus,
valleys, hills, etc.

Before going to factor controlling of landforms development, first, we need to


answer the basic question.

Why do landforms develop? Why is the surface of earth uneven?


Because of the following reasons:

 Earth's crust is a dynamic entity, it moves vertically and horizontally.


 The internal energy originated within the earth due to the geothermal
gradient is not equal in all over the earth surface. This internal forces builts the
different types of elevated land surfaces are called landform.
 The earth's surface continues affects by external forces, it basically comes
from sunlight. Time to time, external forces such as weathering, erosion, and
mass movement changes the structure of landforms and change it to other types
of landforms. For example, over time due to external force, mountains changes to
hills and at last it converted to plain.
 The intensity of external and internal forces is not the same all over the
earth's surface.

The intensity of exogenetic forces and endogenetic force is not the same all over
the earth's surface; apart from these forces that many factors are responsible for
landform development. 

The following are the controlling factors of landform development:


 Rock composition or parent rocks.
 Relief
 Geological Structure
 Climate
 Exogenetic agents
 Energy
 Biological activities
 Human

Rock composition or parent rocks:

Landforms development depends on the texture such as the size of rocks and
composition such as rock may be made of grains or particles. Some rocks are hard
such as Quartz which slowed the erosion and weathering process. Some rocks are
soft such as limestone which is low in resistance against weathering and erosion;
at the result, it leads to fast depletion of landforms.
Particular rocks are may be resistant to one and non-resistant to other
weathering agents which result from the different rate give the rise to different
landforms.

Relief:
Relief is the difference between the highest and lowest elevation of an area. 
More relief is prone to erosion. Landform development is faster in the Himalayan
region than Aravali region because of more relief in the Himalayan region than
Aravali region. More relief means more gravitation force which leads to the mass
movement of materials such as creep and landslides.

Geological Structure:
The geological structure includes an aspect of rocks such as:

 Folds
 Fault
 Orientation
 Inclination of beds
 Presence or absence of joints
 Hardness or softness
 Chemical susceptibility.

Exogenetic Agents:
These exogenetic agents affect the landforms development process and agents
are water, air, ice, current, wave, tides.
Climate:
 Temperature and humidity are the two important factors of climate. High
humidity enhances the process the chemical and biological weathering. High
precipitation and high winds speed enhance erosional activities.
 High-temperature variation leads to rock to expand and contract. As a
result, rocks disintegrate.
  The process and intensity of landform development vary in the different
climatic regions and also vary within the same climatic region because the
intensity of precipitation and temperature is not uniformed.
Energy:
Energy can be internal or external.
 Internal energy:  convergent & divergent cell within the earth. 
 External energy: Temperature variation, air force, pressure variation, etc.
Biological activities
 The presence of vegetation increases the process of chemical weathering
as they release the acid and humidity to rocks.
 The absence of vegetation increases the erosion process which leads to the
fast depletion of elevated landforms.
Human: Activities are Agriculture, Dam Building, infrastructure building, Brick
making, etc, affect the landform development.

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