Professor Wang Nailiang is a famous geomorphologist in China. He worked as a geomorphological science professor for 43 years in Peking University after several years of career in Tsinghua University. He investigated and studied the landforms and the Cenozoic sediments in many regions such as Loess Plateau, North China, Northeast China, Northwest China, and the provinces of Sichuan, Hubei and Guangxi. He achieved great success in research on Cenozoic sediments and geomorphological evolution history, neotectonic movements and tectonic geomorphology, the theories and methods of geomorphology and sedimentology. He worked hard for geomorphological teaching, academic research, scientific activities and international exchange. He contributed greatly to the progress of the geomorphological science in China.

2016 is the 100th anniversary of Professor Shen Yuchang, the founder of river geomorphology in China. To commemorate this event, we reviewed the advances in river geomorphology in China in the past 20 years, which cover the following four topics: (1) river system development and river valley evolution, including the historical development of the Yellow and Yangtze rivers and mountain region river geomorphology; (2) erosion and sediment production processes, including the physically based erosion and sediment yield modeling, scale effect of sediment yield, influence of vegetation on erosion and thresholds, and simulation of hillslope rill development; (3) river channel processes and river patterns, including channel fill and scour behaviors, channel changes and the formative cause of river channel patterns; and (4) study of river geomorphology in the framework of fluvial system, including the couplings between sub-systems, hyperconcentated flows and multiple-agent geomorphologic processes, response of fluvial system to climate change and human activity, sediment-related disasters and the laboratory experiments on fluvial systems. Around 50 years ago, Professors Shen Yuchang and Qian Ning together put forward a strategy for Chinese river researches on the basis of combination of geomorphology with hydrodynamics. In this right direction the river geomorphology in China has achieved an initial breakthrough. In addition, some issues that need to be deepened or solved in the future are addressed.

Chu Yaping was a distinguished expert in geography pedagogy and typonymy in China. He had long been dedicated to researches and practice of geography education. He also strove to perfect the discipline system of geography teaching in middle schools. Furthermore, he put forward the theory of "three systems" of geography teaching materials and the theory of promoting a student-centered geography teaching for students' comprehensive development while deepening researches on teaching and fostering a teaching team of high quality, which promoted the development of geography pedagogy in China. He paid much attention to studies on typonymy and the cultivation of management talents and wrote books, striving to structure the basic theories of typonymy and to present his views on the management, planning, and commercialization of place names in the new era.

Professor Zeng Zhaoxuan was an outstanding geographer. He published numerous articles in various fields of geography, including geomorphology, physical geography and historical geography. Based on long-term field surveys, he studied coastal geomorphology and coral reef geomorphology of the South China Sea, and divided the coast of China into mountainous coast, platform coast and plain coast. In the book China's Coral Reef Geomorphology Research, he and the coauthors Liang Jingfen, et al., systematically reviewed the history of coral reef detection and the species, ecology, geomorphic features and growth of Scleractinia, and divided coral reefs of China into four major areas as well as six geomorphic types. He believed that Genglubu might date back to the Song Dynasty, but the existing version mainly came from the Ming Dynasty. He perfected the classification of folk place name of coral reef geomorphology, divided the distribution area of coral reefs in the South China Sea and drew coral reef detecting map according to Genglubu. From the geological and geomorphological perspectives, he not only demonstrated continental margin relations between the Chinese mainland and the South China Sea Islands, but also showed the evidence that South China Sea is China's inherent territory using the data of historical geography and local chronicles.