Beyond x,y,z(t); Navigating New Landscapes of Science in the Science of Landscapes

At the start of its centennial year, AGU's surface process community revisited G. K. Gilbert's legacy of landscape description and experimental models of surface processes, as well as his embrace of critique and pragmatism in the practice of landscape science. In the 100 years, since Gilbert and especially since the dawn of the 21st century, we have seen an intensified focus on the acquisition of more and more earth observation data and the numerical modeling of landscapes, alongside widespread use of deterministic and predictive practices to find solutions to the social, economic, and environmental challenges of today. What have we gained and lost in this pursuit? Here we lay out some of the challenges for the discipline in an increasingly data‐rich and complex world in which earth science is also being called to reorient itself towards more societally relevant roles. We ask the community to ponder the following: Is the discipline serving our scientific and societal goals, or is there a need for the science of landscapes to adopt new frameworks of thinking and to question the deterministic approaches that have dominated our discipline to date, in order to attend to the needs of living in the Anthropocene? Key Points The field of landscape evolution has become increasingly data‐driven, through field instrumentation, numerical modeling, and remote sensing The Anthropocene requires a more holistic, critical, and systems understanding of our relationship to and with the earth surface In order to address the complexities of this age of uncertainty, we need to reflect upon our reliance on deterministic approaches and to embrace interdisciplinarity, complexity, systems thinking, and other ways of knowing