Human-Environmental Interaction

10 Key excerpts on "Human-Environmental Interaction"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Understanding and Teaching Primary Geography

  • Simon Catling, Tessa Willy, Author(Authors)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  Physical and human geography appear all around us and are important in our daily lives. The natural world provides us with a wide range of resources that provide the raw materials for bricks, stone, concrete, tiles, wood and glass for buildings, as well as the sources of the metals, plastics and energy from which we manufacture materials and generate electricity. Our mobile phones depend for their materials on the natural environment, but they are also the result of human ingenuity, from design to component manufacture and to sales, supported by the sites of aerials to enable us to keep in touch with each other and with the variety of websites we access. Understanding how our food is grown, the nature and quality of the soil, what optimal agricultural conditions are for different crops and animal husbandry, how food is processed before it reaches us and then the energy we use for cooking, require and integrate many aspects of physical and human geography in describing and explaining what happens, why and with what effect for ourselves and others. Physical and human geographies are key to understanding our everyday lives, just as much as in helping us know about and appreciating the nature, events and activities of the wider world. These two interrelated aspects of geography matter a great deal to us all.

  Environmental geography

  Geographers have always recognised that physical and human geography are inextricably linked and highly dependent upon one another in a dynamic and constantly evolving way. They effect, change and impact on each other continuously and so, within geography, cannot realistically be seen separately, although research on particular topics may give this impression. This interface has been termed environmental geography (Castree et al., 2009), and at times an holistic or unified approach in geography, to describe both the processes and the impact of each aspect on the other (Matthews and Herbert, 2004, 2008). This is indicated in Figure 6.1 . Topics that might be included in environmental geography include climate change and deforestation as well as land reclamation and conservation.

  An understanding of environmental geography is crucial if we are to appreciate the complexity of the interrelationship of human geography and physical geography and how we can live in a sustainable way on the Earth. While it is important to understand the specific processes in physical and human geography, we also need to help children appreciate the interplay between them, and how that impacts on people’s lives and the physical environment in which we live. This can be exemplified through two examples.

  Figure 6.1 Aspects of physical and human geography and their interface with environmental geography

  When building a dam to create a reservoir to provide water for settlements, it is crucial to understand the local geology and geomorphology in order to select the best valley site. In the case of a dam built in Andalucía in Spain, the engineers did not appreciate that they were building a dam in a limestone environment and could not understand why it never filled up. The water appeared as a waterfall where the rock type changed over 10km away and the dam became a white elephant and could never be used – it remains there today. Understanding the local geology is fundamental, just as it is essential to know that building a dam directly affects those who live and use the land in the chosen valley site, who will need to be moved out, as well as those who live downstream from the reservoir. It will be essential to do everything to mitigate negative impacts.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Economic and Social Geography

  • R. Knowles, J. Wareing(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Made Simple

    (Publisher)

  PART ONE: THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL GEOGRAPHY CHAPTER ONE MAN AND ENVIRONMENT Geography is currently going through an exciting period in its development as new problems are identified and new methods of analysis are formulated. It is not easy to say precisely what geography is about because geographers often hold different views of the subject, and these views change from time to time, but this is not surprising since geographers are interested in a very wide range of problems and rapid advances are being made in the subject, as they are in all branches of knowledge. Because geography involves such a wide range of knowledge, the subject has been divided into two major areas of study. The first of these is physical geography, which is concerned with the physical environment of landforms, weather and climate, soils, and plants and animals (see Physical Geography Made Simple). The second is human geography, which is concerned with man's activities over the surface of the earth. In many ways this is a false distinction since the activities of man take place within the physical environment, and the physical environment is considerably affected by these activities, but the divi-sion is a useful one and in this book the physical environment will only be considered in relation to man. Human geography can be studied in two principal ways. First, the earth's surface can be studied part by part. This is the approach of regional geography, which seeks to understand the unique character of an area as produced by the interaction of human activity and the physical environment. Secondly, human activity over the earth's surface can be studied part by part. This is the approach of systematic geography, which isolates particular elements such as agriculture, industry or transport, and seeks to understand their spatial patterns and the processes which have produced them.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Visualizing Human Geography

  At Home in a Diverse World

  • Alyson L. Greiner(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  geographers focus on environment–society dynamics and work on topics that span both branches of the discipline (e.g., vulnerability to environmental hazards, impacts of fossil fuel consumption, social consequences of global climate change). The unity of geography as a discipline stems from a shared philosophy that recognizes the ur- gency of better understanding the spatial aspects of hu- man and environmental processes and using geographic knowledge to generate solutions to the social and environ- mental challenges in our world. Human geography, like the discipline of geography more broadly, is both a science and an art. The science of human geography stresses the importance of acquiring adequate knowledge about specific processes, events, or interactions in order to explain where and why they occur. For example, a human geographer studying migration seeks to explain the events or developments that pro- pelled people to move from one place to another. In contrast, the art of human geography emphasizes a different way of knowing that focuses less on explanation and more on understanding and meaning. The human geographer studying migration also learns about the ex- periences of the groups that migrated and how they form attachments to different places. This might include under- standing how migrants perceive their new home and build their lives in it, or whether they feel as though they have homes in more than one country. Thus, the artistic and scientific aspects of human geography are complementary. Nature and Culture What do the words nature and culture mean to you? At first they seem straightforward, but the longer you think about them the more you realize that they both have a variety of different meanings. For example, nature can refer to the intrinsic qualities of a person, or to the outdoors, and culture can refer to taste in the fine arts or to customary beliefs and practices.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  A Companion to Environmental Geography

  • Noel Castree, David Demeritt, Diana Liverman, Bruce Rhoads, Noel Castree, David Demeritt, Diana Liverman, Bruce Rhoads(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  Geography remains one of the few disciplines committed to bridg-ing the divide between the natural and physical sciences, on the one side, and the social sciences and humanities on the other. Quite how successful that bridging has been is a matter of some debate (see, for example, Matthews and Herbert’s [2004] book Unifying geography ). Despite the hopes invested by Turner (2002) and others (e.g., Marston, 2006; Zimmerer, 2007) in human–environment relations as the unifying link holding the discipline together, many geographers prefer to study other things. There is no shortage of ‘pure’ human and physical geographers. Even so, the scale and richness of geographers’ attempts to understand the entanglements of people and the non-human world are highly impressive. These many geographers, their findings and their ideas are what we are calling here ‘environmental geography’ 2 NOEL CASTREE, DAVID DEMERITT AND DIANA LIVERMAN (or what has sometimes also been called the ‘human-environment’ or ‘man-land’ traditions of geography’). By whatever name, environmental geography occupies the fertile ‘borderlands’ where geography’s various traditions of scholarship – not only human and physical, but also regional and GIS – come together and connect with each other and with cognate traditions of environmental work outside geog-raphy (figure 1.1). Though the term is perhaps less familiar than are ‘human’ and ‘physical’ geog-raphy, environmental geography deserves greater recognition both within and beyond the discipline. As this Companion is designed to show, environmental geog-raphy is much more than simply the residual intersection of geography’s two halves. Environmental geography is a large, diverse and vibrant field of knowledge with few, if any, equivalents elsewhere in the conventional academic division of labour. The 32 chapters of this book will, we hope, offer readers both an incisive and acces-sible introduction to this field and set the agenda for its future development.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Geographic Literacy Through Children's Literature

  • Linda K. Rogers(Author)
  • 1997(Publication Date)
  • Libraries Unlimited

    (Publisher)

  Chapter HUMAN-ENVIRONMENTAL RELATIONS "A// places on the earth have advantages and disadvantages for human settlement High population densities have developed on flood plains, for example, where people could take advantage of fertile soils, water resources, and opportunities for river transpiration. By comparison population densities are usually low in deserts. Yet flood plains are periodically subjected to severe damage, and some desert areas, such as Israel, have been modified to support large population concentrations." —W. Kimball, K-6 Geography, 3 This chapter discusses the interrelationship of humans and their environment. Geographers offer a number of subthemes that expand this major theme (Boehm and Petersen 1994). Two of these involve ethical considerations for the environment. In the early history of human exploration of the Earth, we rarely considered what kinds of environmental prob- lems we were creating. We in the Western world (Europeans and Americans) acted as if natural re- sources were unlimited, and we often exploited the environment in ways that clashed with the cultural attitudes of the indigenous peoples. In the more re- cent past, the technology that has created synthetic materials, which have made our lives easier and provided economic support, has also created prob- lems such as those of disposal. Our children are much more aware of the ethical issues involved in human-en- vironmental relationships than we were at their age. We can and should provide opportunities for our students to encounter these issues, discuss them, 41 42 Chapter 4: Human-Environmental Relations and expand their knowledge. Most of the children's literature discussed in this chapter does not address directly the ethical issues, but that doesn't mean you can't raise them. As you look at the subthemes, think about where they can be integrated into your classroom curriculum.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  Environmental Social Science

  Human - Environment interactions and Sustainability

  • Emilio F. Moran(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  1 The Challenge of Human–Environment Interactions Research

  During the past decade there has been rapid development of research on the human dimensions of global environmental change. This growth has been a result of several factors. Evidence for climate change, loss of biodiversity, rapid deforestation in the tropics, and an impending crisis in availability of potable water have made scholars and policy makers aware of the need to address the causes and consequences of these global processes. Moreover, it is widely recognized that these cumulative processes vary in their severity from region to region, and from place to place. In order to understand these processes, research for the past decade has supported the breakdown of traditional disciplinary boundaries in order to understand in more systematic fashion the complexities of the current human–environment nexus. While interdisciplinary research is nothing new, there has been considerable progress in identifying some of the dimensions that speak to these contemporary environmental problems.

  The chapter begins by examining the mounting evidence for the cumulative nature of global environmental change, and the requirements to begin to scientifically understand it. Scientists working on this issue have come to a nearly unanimous conclusion that we cannot begin to understand global environmental change without a concerted and unified effort that integrates both biophysical and social sciences (NRC 1997a; NSF 2003). Human agency (i.e. actions of individuals) is implicated in most of our current dilemmas, and must play a part in solving them. However, integrating the social sciences and the natural sciences has not been easy, nor has the cacophony of competing theories and paradigms helped to promote collaboration between the social sciences and the natural sciences. This chapter reviews the evidence for the nature of the changes, considers the difficulties in understanding these complex bio-geophysical and social processes, provides some history of the development of this interdisciplinary area of study and of global environmental change, and lays the basis for the organization of the rest of the book.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  The SAGE Handbook of Environment and Society

  • Jules Pretty, Andy Ball, Ted Benton, Julia Guivant, David R Lee, David Orr, Max Pfeffer, Professor Hugh Ward, Jules Pretty, Andy Ball, Ted Benton, Julia Guivant, David R Lee, David Orr, Max Pfeffer, Professor Hugh Ward(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  24 The Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change T h o m a s J . W i l b a n k s a n d P a t r i c i a R o m e r o -L a n k a o INTRODUCTION Global environmental change is a term that covers a wide range of processes and phenomena: from geological subsidence to industrial waste disposal, from climate change to land use change. In some cases, such as earthquakes and volcanoes, the cau-sation seems to have little connection with human action, while in other cases the changes are direct results of human action, such as urbanization. But there are very few cases where global environ-mental change is of very broad interest unless it has implications for human societies and decisions. In the contemporary world, with notable excep-tions such as major natural disasters, most of the significant global environmental changes for human societies and economies reflect the hand of humanity as it transforms the “natural” world (Thomas, 1956; Turner et al ., 1990): extracting resources, emitting wastes, reshaping the earth’s surface as we seek to control environmental processes that undermine our comfort, conven-ience, and productivity. As a result, the term “nat-ural environment” refers to conditions that no longer exist on this Earth; for instance, most peo-ple in industrialized countries live their lives in very largely controlled “environments,” where contact with “nature” is an aspect of recreation and tourism rather than a part of daily life, and even “nature preserves” have been affected by such human interventions as air pollution and recreational land use. Reflecting this reality, human dimensions of global environmental change include three major categories: human driving forces that lead to envi-ronmental change, human impacts of environmen-tal change, and human responses to environmental change.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Human Geography

  People, Place, and Culture

  • Erin H. Fouberg, Alexander B. Nash, Alexander B. Murphy, Harm J. de Blij(Authors)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  This leaves open the possibility of “surprises”— unanticipated responses by physical systems. The complexity and urgency of the environmental chal- lenge will tax the energies of the scientific and policy communi- ties for some time to come. Geography must be an essential part of any serious effort to grapple with these challenges. The major changes that are taking place have different origins and spatial expressions, and each results from a unique combination of physical and social processes. We cannot simply focus on system dynamics and generalized causal relationships. We must also consider emerging patterns of environmental change and how different actions have different impacts on the operation of general processes from place to place. Geography is not the backdrop to the changes taking place; it is at the very heart of the changes themselves. SUMMARY Geographers are actively engaged in studying human-environment relations. They point out that how we understand nature influences how we understand our relationship to it. Various approaches to understanding nature, including Marxist and cultural perspectives, have informed environmental movements and government policy over the last 150 years. In the present day, environmental activism takes many forms and operates across a variety of scales from small local-food movements to global activism addressing genetically modified foods and questions of environmental justice. What will the future be like? The opening field note suggests that some see the future taking place somewhere beyond Planet Earth. Many would agree with geographer Robert Kates, who foresees a “warmer, more crowded, more connected but more diverse world.” As we consider this prospect, we must acknowl- edge that global environmental changes illustrate the limits of our knowledge of the Earth. Many of today’s global environmental changes were not anticipated.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  The Mutual Interaction of People and Their Built Environment

  • Amos Rapoport(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • De Gruyter Mouton

    (Publisher)

  2. This last point seems critical and forms the subject of the second major question. It is essential to know what are the effects of the built environment on human behavior, mood, or well-being. If there are no effects, or if these effects are minor, then the importance of studying man-environment interaction is correspondingly diminished. It is also an extremely difficult question to answer since the evidence is often dif-ficult to compare, is contradictory, and is lacking a consensus or generally accepted theoretical position. What follows is a summary version of a particular theoretical formulation. The question of the effect of the physical environment on people has received attention primarily in cultural geography and in environmental design research. The experience in geography, even though it deals with a different set of variables at a different scale, is particularly relevant and offers a useful parallel to developments in the design field. Briefly, there seem to have been three attitudes in geography: a. ENVIRONMENTAL DETERMINISM : the view that the physical environ-ment determines human behavior. Sociocultural Aspects of Matt-Environment Studies 9 b. POSSIBILISM : the view that the physical environment provides possi-bilities and constraints within which people make choices based on other, mainly cultural, criteria. c. PROBABILISM : the current view that the physical environment does, in fact, provide possibilities for choice and is not determining, but that some choices are more probable than others in given physical settings. In planning and design environmental determinism has been the tradi-tional view — the belief that changes in the form of cities and buildings can lead to major changes in a person's behavior, increased happiness, increased social interaction, and so on.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  21st Century Sociology: A Reference Handbook

  • Clifton D. Bryant, Dennis L. Peck, Clifton D. Bryant, Dennis L. Peck(Authors)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  aggregation effects , that is, how people, living together, create social organization. A reciprocal relationship between an individual or collectivity and its environment is posited. Human ecology is, therefore, concerned with the nature and process of community development (Hawley 1950).

  A BRIEF OUTLINE OF THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN ECOLOGICAL THEORY

  The term ecology was coined by the German botanist Ernst Haeckel in 1868, reviving much older concerns. The term human ecology may have been first used by J. Paul Goode, a University of Chicago geographer, at the 1907 meeting of the Association of American Geographers in describing an introductory university course. By 1920, Barrington Moore (1920), president of the Ecological Society of America, characterized geography as “human ecology” in his presidential address, and the journal Ecology reviewed Ellsworth Huntington and Sumner W. Cushing’s Principles of Human Geography under the title “Human Ecology” the following year. In 1922, Harlan Barrows, concerned about the continuing relevance of the field as the era of discovery neared its end, accepted the attribution as the new and future identity for geography in his presidential address to the Association of American Geographers. Anthropologists showed an interest in the relation of their field to ecology as early as 1903, but the term human ecology does not appear to have been used by them until the 1930s. Today, human ecological theory may be most intensively discussed by anthropologists.

  Robert Park’s 1915 essay “The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the City Environment” is sometimes thought to be the origin of ecological thought in sociology, but neither does Park mentions the term nor are the outlines of ecological theory visible. (The 1925 republication of that essay includes a substantially rewritten introduction including the term.) Ecology does not play a large role in his 1921 essay on “Sociology and the Social Sciences” either. That three-part essay roots sociology firmly in history, links collective phenomena to interaction, and outlines a program for research. Park did discuss human ecology in his 1925 presidential address to the American Sociological Society, but it was not until 1936 that Park addressed ecological theory systematically. Nevertheless, Hawley (1950:8) attributed the origin of human ecology in sociology to pages 161 to 216 in Park and Burgess’s ([1921] 1969) Introduction to the Science of Sociology

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book