Geomorphology and the importance of mapping

What’s Geomorphology? Geomorphology is understanding of landforms and their genesis.  It focuses on the land surface and the system process that leads to the shaping of the Earth.  It is a physical science that looks to explain how the world formed to what we see today.  Evans (2012) reviews the definitions of geomorphology, which are surprisingly consistent, but he raises the question of how innovations in geomorphometry (the science of terrain analysis, see ISG) is changing geomorphic mapping.  Changes in geomorphic mapping can have profound impacts on the science of geomorphology, because the foundation of geomorphology is observation and then explanation of Earth surface processes.  When the observation capabilities are enhanced, the foundation of explanation can be greatly altered.  This can lead to a paradigm shift in how we view the creation of land surfaces (Baker and Teidale, 1991).

Geomorphic mapping considers the genesis of landforms, not just the landforms themselves (Dackombe and Gerdiner, 1983). Differing from physical geographic and geologic mapping, it goes more in-depth looking at not just the landforms but mapping the ‘genetics’ of the landforms.  In many ways it is the foundation of geomorphology, providing the data and observations needed for the scientific inquiries to take place.  Geomorphic mapping can occur from the fieldwork scale up to the satellite observation scale.  The concept of land surfaces begins at the human scale or 1.5 meter (Evans 2012), in which people can observe landforms in the real world, and mapping requires fieldwork for proper interpretation.  Geomorphometry and remote sensing has revolutionized geomorphic mapping, in that it allowed for observations in mere minutes what would take weeks in the field to collect, but it does not replace fieldwork.  The Kosi Megafan is an example of how Landsat imagery clearly shows patterns of paleochannels marking a progressive westward shift of the Kosi River from its 1736 position to the eastward edge of the fan (Dackombe and Gerdiner, 1983). Products like Google Earth allows for fly through of the landscape, integrating photometric observation with geomorphic mapping.  Digital Elevation Models (DEM) has also played a major role in geomorphic mapping. They allow for virtual transects to be made, slopes and aspects to be calculated, and 3d visualizations.   DEM analysis has also led to further abilities to extract in automated ways landforms from the surface models (e.g. levees see Sounny-Slitine, 2012). 

Geomorphology is a powerful science in that it integrates findings into the context of the environment. It allows for questions to arise that would not come up just looking at a landform.  Through integration of many datasets geomorphologist are able to understand the evolution of the landscape.  This understanding of the landscape is fundamental to understand other aspects of the environment, like the ecology, natural hazards, and conservation.  The surface of the Earth is where our lives take place. It is literal right beneath our feet and is one of the first curiosities we have as children. Why do our surroundings look the way the look? Surprisingly we know so little about it or its sensitivity to change (Gutiérrez, 2012). Mapping is a tool to understand it more, but only hard geomorphology can explain why the maps look they way they do.  While the technology of observation has advanced greatly, the science behind geomorphology is prime for a new breakthrough of advancements.  It is time to capitalize on the new observations and field technique capabilities to answer fundamental questions about the Earth surface.

WORKS CITED

Baker, V. R., & Twidale, C. R. (1991). The reenchantment of geomorphology. Geomorphology, 4(2), 73-100.

Dackombe, R. V., & Gardiner, V. (1983). Geomorphological field manual. London: Allen & Unwin.

Evans, I. S. (2012). Geomorphometry and landform mapping: What is a landform? Geomorphology, 137(1), 94-106.

Gutiérrez, E. M. (2012). Geomorphology. Boca Raton, Fla: CRC.

International Society from Geomorphometry (ISG), see website http://www.geomorphometry.org/

Sounny-Slitine, M.A. (2012). Geomorphic and anthropogenic influences on hydrological connectivity along the lower Mississippi River. (Master’s Thesis). University of Texas at Austin, Department of Geography and The Environment, under supervision of Dr. Edgardo Latrubesse. 

Environmental Services and Land Change

Land-use change is a human decision.  An actor evaluates economical and physical characteristics of a piece of land before deciding how to use it.  Rationally the actor should choose a course of action in his/her own best financial interest.  The choice may not always be in the best interest of the society as a whole or even the world. Examples like deforestation, climate change, erosion, and degradation can be seen as individuals not valuing environmental services provided by landscapes and instead looking toward individual economic benefits.  In what ways can environmental services be incorporated into the decision-making process of individuals is a question that has not yet fully been addressed.

Environmental services are the conditions and processes in the natural ecosystems that function in sustaining human life (Daily, 1997; Zhang et al., 2007).   Today, environmental services are mostly unrecognized and taken for granted. This has resulted from a framework of thinking that the environment is something that must be conquered and disservices mitigated.  Disservices like pests and weeds impacting agricultural systems (Zhang et al., 2007) or flooding and fire that impact our built environments.  Conquering the environment has led to more resource extraction and land productivity, fueling development and the modern economy.  The unattended consequence of modifying the environment is that the services provided by it have also been destroyed. Services like carbon pools, water supply, soil conservation, and biodiversity.  People have reached a level of development where smart sustainable approaches are needed, ones that continue development while amplifying environmental services and mitigating disservices.

The case study of the educational trust Kamehameha Schools development plan offers insight into land-use decisions that integrate environmental services into planning (see Goldstein et al., 2012). Their case shows a notable gap between the environmental services for society and the economic benefit (Goldstein et al., 2012).   The best economic return would have been to sell for commercial development.  The organization with long historic roots and prominent role in the community had to use moral values when choosing development options.  This was the motivation in developing with environmental services in mind, but the question of not developing also shows a problem with the current economic system. If they chose the path of conservation, not developing at all, they would have had to continue to pay taxes on the land meaning an economic loss.  In there own interests they must develop. Valuing environmental series can change the calculation.  At very least not taxing land providing services would have relieved economic pressures to develop.  At best giving some sort of payment for environmental services would have led to a positive force at preserving the land.  The current economic system required them to make tradeoffs, find ways to develop while preserving as much environmental services as possible.

What is needed is changes in how environmental services are valued.  Much attention has been applied to valuing environmental services (Zhang et al., 2007; Ninan & Inoue, 2013), but it is impossible to know what the true economic value of these services are since they are not accounted for in economic decisions.  Furthermore the biophysical aspects of environmental services are still not fully cataloged.  These services are taken for granted, much like the sun is assumed to continue to shine, the environment is assumed always to operate. The environment is not like the sun, it is close to us and people modify it.   Moving forward as a global society we must look to development that takes into account the full impact.  We still have not seen the full consequences of our current development paradigm.  Development is projected to grow at an alarming rate in the global tropics (Seto et al., 2012).  This offers both a challenge and an opportunity.  The challenge is not to develop in business as usual approaches, which can have devastating impacts on global carbon pools and biodiversity hotspots.  The opportunity is to find market solutions that will prompt sustainable development and stewardship of the environment.   Now that people have shown they can modify the environment towards economic benefits, they need to show that they can modify it to social and environmental benefits as well.  When we do that we will have a development paradigm for the future.

Works Cited

Daily, G., (1997). Nature's Services. Island Press, Washington, DC.

Goldstein, J. H., Caldarone, G., Duarte, T. K., Ennaanay, D., Hannahs, N., Mendoza, G., ... & Daily, G. C. (2012). Integrating ecosystem-service tradeoffs into land-use decisions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,109(19), 7565-7570.

Ninan, K. N., & Inoue, M. (2013). Valuing forest ecosystem services: What we know and what we don't. Ecological Economics, 93, 137-149.

Seto, K. C., Güneralp, B., & Hutyra, L. R. (2012). Global forecasts of urban expansion to 2030 and direct impacts on biodiversity and carbon pools. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(40), 16083-16088.

Zhang, W., Ricketts, T. H., Kremen, C., Carney, K., & Swinton, S. M. (2007). Ecosystem services and dis-services to agriculture. Ecological economics,64(2), 253-260. 

Population Crisis?

The world is facing rapid growing populations. Since the industrial revolution, populations have swelled, but is rapid population growth a problem for the environment? Populations require food, energy, water, and other natural resources to sustain.  Nature can be seen as opposing a check on population sizes (Malthus, 1789), where populations can grow till they reach a carrying capacity of the environment. This is seen in nature with many living organisms, but this principle has not seemed to hold with people.  Surely people do negatively impact the environment, but the decline of the human race is always predicted, but populations keep growing.  Is it because we have not reached the carrying capacity of Earth? It is not that simple.  The human being is different then other living creatures on the planet in that it has the ability to modify the environment and adapt techniques to the situation they are in, not relying on instinct but on ingenuity.  As populations have grown people have found ways to extract more resources and increased efficiencies in their use (Boserup, 1965), allowing for a modification of the theoretical carrying capacity of Earth with increase populations (Ellis, 2013).  Limitless growth does seem implausibly and true a limit of resources is a concern to us all. People may have the ability to extend the capacity of Earth but a limit does exist.  So technical solutions to extend the carrying capacity of the planet cannot always be the solution (Hardin, 1968), sooner or latter population will have to be controlled, but is it necessary to control it by force? When examining populations in terms of growth rate as opposed to raw number, population looks more manageable with relatively small growth rates (World Bank, 1989).  These small rates translate to a sensitive process that can easily be changed.  Additionally, when comparing developed regions to developing ones, fertility rates have dropped drastically with emergence of stronger economies (Lewis, 2013).  While technology has lead to more effective extracting or resources, it is now impacting our social system.  People do not want to have large families and social changes that result from an advance economy maybe the solution to the population problem. The next problem is how to make the modern lifestyle less impactful on the environment, so as more people can live it without the environment going to ruin.

Works Cited

Boserup, E (1965). The .conditions of agricultural growth (pp. 41-42). Chicago: Aldine.

Ellis, E.C. (2013, 13 September). Overpopulation is not the problem. The New York Times.

Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. New York.

Lewis, M.W. (2013, 7 May). India’s plummeting birthrate: A television-induced transformation? Geocurrents

Malthus, T. P. (1998). An Essay on the Principle of Population. 1798. Reprint. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

World Bank. (1989). World development report 1989. New York: Published for the World Bank, Oxford University Press. Box 4.6 "Three Views of Population Change," P. 76Top of Form

Land Sparing and Sharing

How will the demands of growing populations for food be met?  Many believe that a modern agricultural system is required to meet the demand, but does a modern mechanized agricultural system have to be incompatible with the environment? When thinking about land-use patterns and the environment, development of modern intensive agriculture often equals lower environmental quality.  Intense agriculture can have negative external effects away from the farmland, e.g. dead zones, erosion deforestation, water contamination, algae blooms, and loss of biodiversity (Ewers et al., 2009), but does it have to be this way? What if it is possible to have high yield agriculture while reducing pressures on forest through requiring less land through increase production (Gutiérrez-Vélez et al., 2011). It is a challenge to combine efficient agricultural land-use with biodiversity conservation (Tscharntke et al, 2012), but two land systems processes being studied with potential for a win-win scenario is the concepts of Land Sparing and Land Sharing.

Land sharing and sparing are two types of land-use practices that focus on efficiently of agricultural land-use in order to have more land available for nature. Through intensification it is possible to reduce or eliminate the conversion of new cropland area that would otherwise be required to grow food.   The major difference between the two models is in the mix of land uses. In the land-sparing model the land-uses of agriculture and wild are segregated, while in land sharing the land-uses overlap (Phalan et al., 2011).  Land sharing is also known as wildlife friendly production, which is farming that happens within the wildlife fragmented in the habitat. Land sparing can be associated with the idea of nature preserves and conservation areas.

Satellite observations have shown evidence that it is possible to achieve the dual objectives of forest conservation and agricultural production (Macedo et al., 2011). In many ways these two models of land development are working to increase efficiency of production.  Land is an input into agricultural production like fertilizers and water, and using it more effectively can lead to high yields per acre, allowing for a great supply of land and reducing the demand on wild lands for conversion. In many ways through intensification the luxury of sparing or sharing land-use with the nature occurs.

Land sparing and sharing may not occur or is not perfect (Ewers et al., 2009). This is due to prices of goods decreasing with increase production, which will lead to an increased demand. To further complicate the land trends, high agricultural subsidies over-ride many land sparing activities that would otherwise occur (Ewers et al., 2009).  This is evident through history, as croplands have increased despite the advancement in crop yields.  Some of it is due to government subsidies are stimulating overproduction, because food production is often seen as national security.

Land-use policies are not the only solution and may not be as effective as other social solutions at eliminating world hunger. World hunger is linked to poverty not production, so many argue that solutions in production will not lead to the end of hunger, but broader social reforms are needed. Production levels do not necessarily have to increase, but reforms that prevent waste in the system and make food access more equitable can have a bigger impact.

Works Cited

Ewers, R. M., Scharlemann, J. P., Balmford, A., & Green, R. E. (2009). Do increases in agricultural yield spare land for nature?. Global Change Biology,15(7), 1716-1726.

Gutiérrez-Vélez, V. H., DeFries, R., Pinedo-Vásquez, M., Uriarte, M., Padoch, C., Baethgen, W., ... & Lim, Y. (2011). High-yield oil palm expansion spares land at the expense of forests in the Peruvian Amazon. Environmental Research Letters, 6(4), 044029.

Macedo, M. N., DeFries, R. S., Morton, D. C., Stickler, C. M., Galford, G. L., & Shimabukuro, Y. E. (2012). Decoupling of deforestation and soy production in the southern Amazon during the late 2000s. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(4), 1341-1346.

Phalan, B., Onial, M., Balmford, A., & Green, R. E. (2011). Reconciling food production and biodiversity conservation: land sharing and land sparing compared. Science, 333(6047), 1289-1291.

Tscharntke, T., Clough, Y., Wanger, T. C., Jackson, L., Motzke, I., Perfecto, I., ... & Whitbread, A. (2012). Global food security, biodiversity conservation and the future of agricultural intensification. Biological Conservation, 151(1), 53-59.

Small farm in a big world: globalization’s impact on Latin American food systems.

Agricultural systems are in a state of flux in Latin America providing both opportunities and pitfalls for farmers (Doolittle, 2002). This flux is a result of increased liberalization of economies coupled with globalization of market places. Access to global markets and industrial technologies can be a good thing for developing countries, especially at the macro level, but on the micro level of individual small farm holders it could mean the loss of livelihoods. Latin America is an urban place, with large urban populations relying on the food systems (Doolittle, 2002). This population dynamic has supported the rural farmer growing food for the urban populations, but as cheap food imports flood local markets, peasant and farm families can no longer compete and are driven from their lands (Campesina, 2000). Some argue that this can be a net environmental benefit, falling under a land sparing model, where intensive agriculture is concentrated and increased in production sparing the land for nature conservation (Grau & Aide, 2008). While social programs or practices like welfare and remittances are attributed as way to help support people left behind from this rapid economic change, it is not a sustainable solution because people take pride in working and self-reliance.  Some social rural movements are pushing for food sovereignty as an alternative, which focuses on local autonomy, local markets, local production/consumption cycles, energy and technological sovereignty and farmer-to-farmer networks (Altieri, 2008). This approach has positive aspects on the micro level, but is hard to argue for on the macro level. Successes like Argentina becoming the third largest producer of soybean in the world through liberal economic reforms of the 1990’s (Caceres et al., 2009) are hard for developmental leaders to ignore and instead adopt a protectionist and isolationist policy.  A true sustainable model for food production should engage global markets while supporting smallholders and protecting the environment.  Ironically while Latin America is adapting to industrial farming, developed countries like the United States and European Nations are struggling to support local and sustainable agriculture. Programs like community supported agriculture, farmers’ markets, and local/organic food movements could be solutions, which Latin American countries can adopt proactively instead of following the same development playbook as industrialized nations.

Works Cited

Altieri, M. A. (2008). Small farms as a planetary ecological asset: five key reasons why we should support the revitalisation of small farms in the global south. Third World network (TWN).

Cáceres, D., Silvetti, F., Díaz, S., Calvo, S., & Quétier, F. (2009). Environmental winners and losers in Argentina’s soybean boom. Applying Ecological Knowledge to Landuse Decisions, 65.

Campesina, V. (2000, October). Bangalore Declaration of the Via Campesina. In Declaration ar the Third International Conference of the Via Campesina (pp. 3-6).

Doolittle, W. (2002). Feeding a Growing Population on an Increasing Fragile Planet. Latin America in the 21st Centruy: Challenges and Solutions.

  

Grau, H. R., & Aide, M. (2008). Globalization and land-use transitions in Latin America. Ecology and Society, 13(2), 16.

Land dynamics: forest transition & indirect land use change

Land dynamics that form from the human-environment relationship in land change science can be surprising.  The landscape and the anthropogenic impacts to its composition are a complex relationship.  For example global demands on the environment are rising and their accompany stresses on the environment are expected to grow (Grau and Aide, 2008), but the land use systems are more complex then this simple relationship and they seem to offer a degree of resilience in accommodating these new pressures. At the same time if human policies are design in faulty ways environmental stresses can be intensified. The goal is to understand land dynamics in order to amplify land system resilience which decreasing human impacts.  This summary outlines two processes on the landscape in which better understanding can lead to better-regulated human-environment systems.  These processes are forest transition and indirect land use change.

Forest transition in is simplest terms is when a region of the world experiences a shifts from net deforestation to net reforestation (Meyfroidt et al., 2010; Pfaff and Walker, 2010).  This processes is surprising in that it can be seen to be an analogue with development. When countries are transition from subsistence to a developing economy, there are high rates of deforestation using the natural capital to industrialize and shift to manufacturing economy. This is accompanied by agricultural intensification leading to abandoned lands and beginning of forest recovery.  There is a growth of population in urban areas that interact with the global markets to satisfy consumption. Examples of countries currently going through forest transition are Costa Rica, Chile, El Salvador, Bhutan, China, India, and Vietnam.  Developed nations like the United States (US), France, and other European countries have already underwent forest transition.  Rapidly developing countries like Brazil, Indonesia, Cameroon, and Peru have had no forest transition, and still deforest at high rates.  This can be an attractive story line, that development would save the forests, but countries that are having forest transitions is a result of exporting the resource demands to other countries (Meyfroidt et al., 2010; Pfaff and Walker, 2010).   This outsourcing of forest related lands is more then just timber demands, but can also be agricultural demands.  Food and other natural resources that are not being produced in developed countries like France and the US are one of the mechanisms leading the reforestation trends.  Further more the intensification of agriculture, concentrating the production is sparing more land for transition (Grau and Aide, 2008).  This can have social impact divorcing people from land production leaving them out of work.  Higher skill labor is required in these new economies where people are replaced by machinery.  Social programs and remittances are ways the society resilience forms in this new paradigm.   The question is how to transition forests without outsourcing environmental degradation, and how to transform economies without leaving whole groups of people behind.  Policy is the solution in constructing constraints into development.

Regions of the world under heavy deforestation are under rapid development, but are trying to design policies to encourage forest transition.  Land conversion restrictions are one popular policy that on face value looks at responsible development. Lapola et al. (2010) analyzed one such program in the manufacturing of biofuels from soy.  In this case land use restrictions where applied that production of soy could not take place on lands that were not already degraded.  This restriction looked to stop forest conversion that would be driven by the development of biofuels.  The plan is faulty in that they did not take into account indirect land use change.  Development of biofuel production does not take place in an isolated world, but in the context of the whole economy.  Pricing current lands became more valuable in supplying the demand needed for biofuel production.  Other land uses were not restricted, simply displacing land use to other parts of the country, which normally resulted in deforestation.  Without a comprehensive approach the development of biofuels lead to indirect land-use change that made the policy design have little net environmental benefit. Smarter policy is needed, but without a complete understanding of land dynamics it is hard to design.

Landscape change and human use of the land adapt not only to the natural systems but also the social system.  Understanding land dynamics is important in order to design better policy.  Some activities can have indirect benefits of consequences, and designing a constrained system that works toward benefits can help in solving environmental problems.  There is a need to research in human use of the world in order to develop sustainably.

Works Cited

Grau, H. R., & Aide, M. (2008). Globalization and land-use transitions in Latin America. Ecology and Society, 13(2), 16.

Lapola, D. M., Schaldach, R., Alcamo, J., Bondeau, A., Koch, J., Koelking, C., & Priess, J. A. (2010). Indirect land-use changes can overcome carbon savings from biofuels in Brazil. Proceedings of the national Academy of Sciences, 107(8), 3388-3393.

Meyfroidt, P., Rudel, T. K., & Lambin, E. F. (2010). Forest transitions, trade, and the global displacement of land use. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(49), 20917-20922.

Pfaff, A., & Walker, R. (2010). Regional interdependence and forest “transitions”: Substitute deforestation limits the relevance of local reversals.Land Use Policy, 27(2), 119-129.

You are what you eat.

The famous phrase dates back to 1826 works of Brillat-Savarin who wrote, “Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.” Since then the phrase has been applied to physiology in that if one eats wholesome foods, they will have a healthier life. The concept of ‘what you eat making who you are’ can go further then one’s physical health, but it can also be an expression of culture, morals, and identity. If people’s consumption of food (e.g. their choices and reactions) is an expression of culture (Douglas and Isherwood, 1979), then what does the modern food system say about our modern culture? In the modern food system the disconnection of people and food production has led to many corrupt practices. The problem of food security still exists, but now it has a counter part of over consumption.  At the macro-scale, greed and competition has led to produce an ‘at all costs’ mentality and uneven distribution of food resources.  Zooming into the microscale, people’s kitchens used to be an important place for cultural practices to be learned, taught, and continued (Christe, 2008), are now being replaced by microwaved meals and semi-prepared foods. While people have degraded their connection with food, resurgent consumers are demanding markets to change. Like in the case of social resistance to recombinant bovine growth hormone/bovine somatotropin (rBST) in milk production (Goodman and DuPuis, 2002), consumers demanded through purchasing preference against rBST treated milk, and the market answered through a volunteer halt of it use in most milk production. Consumption-based resistance is also leading to a revival of ancient grains in the modern market place (Healy, 2004).  It has resulted in alternative production methods like organic and Buen Vivir (see Gudynas, 2011).  A post-modern food system is one that responded to consumer demands and reflects society more clearly. People are not inherently greedy, wanting more at no costs; they make decisions within a moral framework.  Today, thanks to informed consumers making demands on the market, the food system is beginning to reflect our common morality.

Works Cited

Brillat-Savarin, J. A. (1826). Physiologie du goût ou méditations de gastronomie transcendante. A. Sautelet.

Christie, M. E. (2008). Kitchenspace: women, fiestas, and everyday life in central Mexico. U of Texas Press.

Douglas, M. & Isherwood, B. (1979). The world of goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption London: Allen Lane.

Goodman, D., & DuPuis, E. M. (2002). Knowing food and growing food: beyond the production–consumption debate in the sociology of agriculture. Sociologia ruralis, 42(1), 5-22.

Gudynas, E. (2011). Buen Vivir: Today's tomorrow. Development, 54(4), 441-447.

Healy, K. (2004) An Andean Food Revolution; bringing ancient nutrition to the modern marketplace. Native Americas, XXI(2), 46-51 (2004).