A Companion to Environmental Geography

Castree, Noel / Demeritt, David / Liverman, Diana / Rhoads, Bruce (Editor)

Blackwell Companions to Geography

1. Edition September 2016
608 Pages, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd

ISBN: 978-1-119-25062-3

John Wiley & Sons

Short Description

This volume presents more than 30 newly commissioned essays by leading scholars that provide a summary of the state of the art in environmental geography and look ahead to future research developments in the field. It covers important practices, from remote sensing to modeling and simulation, as well as key concepts like sustainability and biodiversity. The book also devotes attention to specific topics impacting the field today, including ecosystem prediction and management, common property regimes, and integrated environmental assessment. It is an essential resource for anyone studying or working in environmental geography.

Further versions

A Companion to Environmental Geography is the first book to comprehensively and systematically map the research frontier of 'human-environment geography' in an accessible and comprehensive way.
* Cross-cuts several areas of a discipline which has traditionally been seen as divided; presenting work by human and physical geographers in the same volume
* Presents both the current 'state of the art' research and charts future possibilities for the discipline
* Extends the term 'environmental geography' beyond its 'traditional' meanings to include new work on nature and environment by human and physical geographers - not just hazards, resources, and conservation geographers
* Contains essays from an outstanding group of international contributors from among established scholars and rising stars in geography

Acknowledgements viii

List of Contributors ix

1 Introduction: Making Sense of Environmental Geography 1
Noel Castree, David Demeritt and Diana Liverman

Part I Concepts 17

2 Nature 19
Bruce Braun

3 Sustainability 37
Becky Mansfield

4 Biodiversity 50
Karl S. Zimmerer

5 Complexity, Chaos and Emergence 66
Steven M. Manson

6 Uncertainty and Risk 81
James D. Brown and Sarah L. Damery

7 Scale 95
Nathan F. Sayre

8 Vulnerability and Resilience to Environmental Change: Ecological and Social Perspectives 109
W. Neil Adger and Katrina Brown

9 Commodification 123
Scott Prudham

Part II Approaches 143

10 Earth-System Science 145
John Wainwright

11 Land Change (Systems) Science 168
B. L. Turner II

12 Ecology: Natural and Political 181
Matthew D. Turner

13 Quaternary Geography and the Human Past 198
Jamie Woodward

14 Environmental History 223
Georgina H. Endfield

15 Landscape, Culture and Regional Studies: Connecting the Dots 238
Kenneth R. Olwig

16 Ecological Modernisation and Industrial Transformation 253
Arthur P. J. Mol and Gert Spaargaren

17 Marxist Political Economy and the Environment 266
George Henderson

18 After Nature: Entangled Worlds 294
Owain Jones

Part III Practices 313

19 Remote Sensing and Earth Observation 315
Heiko Balzter

20 Modelling and Simulation 336
George L. W. Perry

21 Integrated Assessment 357
James Tansey

22 Ethnography 370
Kevin St. Martin and Marianna Pavlovskaya

23 Analysing Environmental Discourses and Representations 385
Tom Mels

24 Deliberative and Participatory Approaches in Environmental Geography 400
Jason Chilvers

Part IV Topics 419

25 Ecosystem Prediction and Management 421
Robert A. Francis

26 Environment and Development 442
Tom Perreault

27 Natural Hazards 461
Daanish Mustafa

28 Environmental Governance 475
Gavin Bridge and Tom Perreault

29 Commons 498
James McCarthy

30 Water 515
Karen Bakker

31 Energy Transformations and Geographic Research 533
Scott Jiusto

32 Food and Agriculture in a Globalising World 552
Richard Le Heron

33 Environment and Health 567
Hilda E. Kurtz and Karen E. Smoyer-Tomic

Index 580

Noel Castree is Professor of Geography at Manchester University, England, and the University of Wollongong, Australia. Editor of Social Nature (2001) and author of Making Sense of Nature (2013), his current research focuses on how people and Earth are represented by expert communities cross the disciplines.

David Demeritt is a Reader in Geography at King's College, London. He has published many essays on the politics and practice of environmental science and theories of society-nature relations more generally.

Diana Liverman is Co-Director of the Institute of the Environment and Regents Professor of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona. She has published widely on environmental change and policy.

Bruce Rhoads is Professor and Chair of the Department of Geography, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and would describe himself as a 'hard core' physical geographer.

N. Castree, University of Manchester, UK; D. Demeritt, King's College, University of London, UK; D. Liverman, University of Oxford, UK; B. Rhoads, University of Illinois, USA