Managing Landscapes for Change

Author: Robert M. Scheller
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030620417
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 111

Book Description
This book discusses how future landscapes will be shaped by pervasive change and where, when, and how society should manage landscapes for change. Readers will learn about the major anthropogenic drivers of landscape change, including climate change and human induced disturbance regimes, and the unique consequences that multiple and simultaneously occurring change agents can have on landscapes. The author uses landscape trajectories as a guide to selecting the appropriate course of action, and considers how landscape position, inertia, and direction will determine landscape futures. The author introduces the concept of landscapes as socio-technical-ecological systems (STES), which combines ecological and technological influences on future landscape change and the need for society to acknowledge both when considering landscape management. Thinking beyond solutions, the author identifies barriers to managing landscapes for change including the cost, cultural identity of local populations, and the fear of taking action under uncertain conditions. Nevertheless, processes, tools, and technologies exist for overcoming social and ecological barriers to managing landscapes for change, and continued investment in social and scientific infrastructure holds out hope for maintaining our landscape values even as we enter an era of unprecedented change and disruption.

Landscapes of Change

Author: Roxi Thoren
Publisher: Timber Press
ISBN: 160469386X
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
Climate change, natural resource use, population shifts, and many other factors have all changed the demands we place on landscape designs. Projects now have to help connect neighborhoods, absorb stormwater, cool urban centers, and provide wildlife habitats. Landscapes of Change examines how these challenges drive the design process, inspire new design strategies, and result in innovative works that are redefining the field of landscape architecture. In 25 case studies from around the world, Roxi Thoren explores how the site can serve as the design generator, describing each project through the physical, material, ecological, and cultural processes that have shaped the site historically and continue to shape these ground-breaking projects.

A State of Change

Author: Laura Cunningham
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781597143066
Category : Historical geology
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Its hard to imagine Californias landscape before European explorers arrived and recorded what they saw. Laura Cunninghams research goes well beyond that and her art brings that landscape to life once again

Changing Landscapes: An Ecological Perspective

Author: Izaak S. Zonneveld
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461233046
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Book Description
Landscape Ecology is an emerging science of gaining momentum over the past few decades in the scientific as well as in the planning-management worlds. Although the field is rooted in biology and geography, the approaches to understanding the ecology of a landscape are highly divers. This hybrid vigor provides power to the field. One can no longer view a local ecosystem or land use in isolation from global areas and time frames. The surrounding landscape mosaic and the flows and movements in a landscape must be considered, especially the linkage between humans requiring resources provided by nature, the constraints on their use as well as the responding landscape.

Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes

Author: Carl Steinitz
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 9781559632249
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Leading landscape architect and planner Carl Steinitz has developed an innovative GIS-based simulation modeling strategy that considers the demographic, economic, physical, and environmental processes of an area and projects the consequences to that area of various land-use planning and management decisions. The results of such projections, and the approach itself, are known as "alternative futures." Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes presents for the first time in book form a detailed case study of one alternative futures project—an analysis of development and conservation options for the Upper San Pedro River Basin in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. The area is internationally recognized for its high levels of biodiversity, and like many regions, it is facing increased pressures from nearby population centers, agriculture, and mining interests. Local officials and others planning for the future of the region are seeking to balance the needs of the natural environment with those of local human communities. The book describes how the research team, working with local stakeholders, developed a set of scenarios which encompassed public opinion on the major issues facing the area. They then simulated an array of possible patterns of land uses and assessed the resultant impacts on biodiversity and related environmental factors including vegetation, hydrology, and visual preference. The book gives a comprehensive overview of how the study was conducted, along with descriptions and analysis of the alternative futures that resulted. It includes more than 30 charts and graphs and more than 150 color figures. Scenario-based studies of alternative futures offer communities a powerful tool for making better-informed decisions today, which can help lead to an improved future. Alternative Futures for Changing Landscapes presents an important look at this promising approach and how it works for planners, landscape architects, local officials, and anyone involved with making land use decisions on local and regional scales.

Mountain Landscapes in Transition

Author: Udo Schickhoff
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030702383
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 665

Book Description
This book compiles available knowledge of the response of mountain ecosystems to recent climate and land use change and intends to bridge the gap between science, policy and the community concerned. The chapters present key concepts, major drivers and key processes of mountain response, providing transdisciplinary orientation to mountain studies incorporating experiences of academics, community leaders and policy-makers from developed and less developed countries. The book chapters are arranged in two sections. The first section concerns the response processes of mountain environments to climate change. This section addresses climate change itself (past, current and future changes of temperature and precipitation) and its impacts on the cryosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and human-environment systems. The second section focuses on the response processes of mountain environments to land use/land cover change. The case studies address effects of changing agriculture and pastoralism, forest/water resources management and urbanization processes, landscape management, and biodiversity conservation. The book is designed as an interdisciplinary publication which critically evaluates developments in mountains of the world with contributions from both social and natural sciences.

Landscape of Migration

Author: Ben Nobbs-Thiessen
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469656116
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 343

Book Description
In the wake of a 1952 revolution, leaders of Bolivia's National Revolutionary Movement (MNR) embarked on a program of internal colonization known as the "March to the East." In an impoverished country dependent on highland mining, the MNR sought to convert the nation's vast "undeveloped" Amazonian frontier into farmland, hoping to achieve food security, territorial integrity, and demographic balance. To do so, they encouraged hundreds of thousands of Indigenous Bolivians to relocate from the "overcrowded" Andes to the tropical lowlands, but also welcomed surprising transnational migrant streams, including horse-and-buggy Mennonites from Mexico and displaced Okinawans from across the Pacific. Ben Nobbs-Thiessen details the multifaceted results of these migrations on the environment of the South American interior. As he reveals, one of the "migrants" with the greatest impact was the soybean, which Bolivia embraced as a profitable cash crop while eschewing earlier goals of food security, creating a new model for extractive export agriculture. Half a century of colonization would transform the small regional capital of Santa Cruz de la Sierra into Bolivia's largest city, and the diverging stories of Andean, Mennonite, and Okinawan migrants complicate our understandings of tradition, modernity, foreignness, and belonging in the heart of a rising agro-industrial empire.

Revealing Change in Cultural Landscapes

Author: Catherine Heatherington
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429657137
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Book Description
This book explores different design approaches to revealing change within a landscape, and examines how landscape designers bring together the cultural context of a specific place with material, spatial and ecological considerations. Revealing Change in Cultural Landscapes includes case studies such as Gilles Clément’s Jardin du Tiers-Paysage in France, the Brick Pit in Sydney, Australia and Georges Descombes’ Renaturation of the River Aire in Switzerland to uncover the insights of designers. In doing so, Catherine Heatherington considers the different ways designers approach the revealing of change and how this informs a discussion about people’s perceptions and understanding of landscape. With over 100 images and contributions from Jacky Bowring, Dermot Foley and Krystallia Kamvasinou, this book will be beneficial for students of landscape and landscape architecture, particularly those with an interest in how landscapes change over time and how this is perceived by both designers and visitors.

California's Changing Landscapes

Author: Michael G. Barbour
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780943460178
Category : Biodiversity
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
California is rich because of its great valleys & mountain ranges, rivers & deserts, each home to a unique assemblage of plants & animals. The living landscape of California has changed dramatically over the past one hundred years. The process of rapid change began with emigrants who, from their native lands, carried seed & seedlings to be nourished by California's rich soils & hospitable climate. Change continues today with each wave of newcomers & the process remains unfinished. This book visits each of the major native plant communities that have evolved in California: the dunes & marshes of the coast, the forests that clothe the mountains & the deserts that attract visitors from around the world. It also examines the great cultural mosaic of early native inhabitants & how they built their cultures in harmony with native plants & animals. And finally it looks at restoration of habitats damaged by past activities. This book will assist readers to understand California's rich botanical landscape, past & present, & thus, help them make more knowledgeable decisions for the future. It is appropriate for general readers of natural history, high school & college classes. Available from the California Native Plant Society, 909 12th St., Sacramento, CA 95814.

Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes

Author: H. Scott Butterfield
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1642831263
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
As the world population grows, so does the demand for food, putting unprecedented pressure on agricultural lands. In many desert dryland regions, however, intensive cultivation is causing their productivity to decline precipitously. "Rewilding" the least productive of these landscapes offers a sensible way to reverse the damage, recover natural diversity, and ensure long-term sustainability of remaining farms and the communities they support. This accessibly written, groundbreaking contributed volume is the first to examine in detail what it would take to retire eligible farmland and restore functioning natural ecosystems. The lessons in Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes will be useful to conservation leaders, policymakers, groundwater agencies, and water managers looking for inspiration and practical advice for solving the complicated issues of agricultural sustainability and water management.