Facies, Landscape

an elementary morphological unit of a geographic landscape; a structural component of an isolated topographic feature. A landscape facies usually coincides with one mesorelief element—for example, the top of a hill or the upper part of a hill’s northern slope—or with an individual microrelief form. It is characterized by a homogeneous bedrock, microclimate, water regimen, and soil cover and is located within a single biocenosis. The diverse types of landscape facies result from natural differences and from deforestation, plowing, land reclamation, and other forms of human activity.