An historical look at the Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium

Abstract

The Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium (BGS) is an annual meeting held since 1970, usually in the U.S.A., on timely topics in the field of geomorphology. A special issue of this journal presents the papers from each meeting and provides an opportunity to disseminate to the international community research relevant to that year's theme written by key people in that field. In this paper, we review the history of the BGS, examine the academic disciplines of each year's organizers, compile a list of the researchers who have made multiple contributions to BGS, note the citation impact of papers published in the annual proceedings, map the spatial distribution of the meeting locations, and categorize the gender distribution of the contributors to the symposium. Contributions from female authors to the BGS have steadily increased since the 1970s; however, from 2003 to 2013, females still only accounted for 23.6% of the proceeding's papers, an increase of 16.4% from the 1970s. These numbers are not surprising when compared to the gender distribution of the top positions in specialty groups in the U.S. Between 1989 and 2010, over 7000 citations were from articles published in BGS special issues, indicating their contributions to the geomorphology field. When normalized by the number of years the articles have been available, papers from BGS whose themes combined geomorphology with other fields (i.e., natural hazards and geomorphology), rated higher numbers of citations. The dispersion of the location of BGS meetings illustrates how the series is maturing by moving away from its origin in the U.S. northeast.