Numerical analysis and geomorphology. An introduction / Численный анализ в геоморфологии. Введение

Land forms and drainage patterns are being studied by more and more elaborate methods all the time. The increasingly accurate methods of measuring land form and geomorphological processes are providing a vast amount of quantitative data. This has to be analysed by numerical methods so that an orderly behaviour may be discerned from amongst the mass of accumulated data. This book sets out to provide an introduction to those numerical methods which we have found to be most useful in the analysis of geomorphological data. In it we have tried to show how even the simplest statistical tests can bring out significant points concerning the landscape. But land forms are sometimes complex, having many measurable properties, and this demands of the geomorphologists an appreciation of the value of multivariate statistical analysis. At its most complex such methods demand the use of a computer. Nevertheless, many of the methods in this book can be applied with no more than a set of mathematical tables or a slide-rule. These are well within the grasp of students in the upper forms of schools, at colleges of higher education and polytechnics as well as those at a university. <...>