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Within geography, physical geography is concerned with the characteristics of the natural environment, the atmosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere; how they influence human activities and how they are affected by them across the face of the globe. It comprises geomorphology, climatology and biogeography, and proceeds by monitoring, modelling and managing environmental change. Geographical research at first concentrated on the direct impacts of glaciation on the geomorphology of Britain, such as the glacial erosion of northern Britain and its indirect impacts, especially the effects of changing sea levels. Physical geographers in the last 100 years have taken some comfort from the knowledge that their skills are applied in matters of public interest and importance. Now the pace of global environmental change is such that these skills will be essential in the next 100 years, in solving some of the great contemporary environmental problems such as global warming, the global disappearance of forests, desertification and water pollution.

New Guinea is a crucial region for the study of prehistory as a key witness for a precontact situation before colonial disruption and/or state formation. The New Guinea region is the most linguistically diverse on earth, but even within it, the Sepik-Ramu basin region takes diversity to an extreme without parallel. This chapter investigates the likely causes of its stupendous linguistic diversity. It looks at geomorphological changes in the region in the last 8,000 years due to rising sea levels and inundation of the low lying land and the gradual filling in of this again by sediment, with a consequent remigration of new peoples into reclaimed land. Further, indigenous beliefs with regard to language and a wide range of language codes to select from, even in a single village, have led to widespread mixing and shifting of languages, as economic advantages and political alignments altered.

Wetland ecology incorporates the interactions of biota (plants, animals, microbes) with the unique physical and chemical environment present in wetlands. Wetlands are foremost geologic features, and geomorphology coupled with climate forms the template on which wetland ecology occurs. Hydrology is the factor most influenced by geomorphology and climate, and hydrology is also the primary conduit for the control of the physico-chemical environment and the biotic interactions in wetlands. This book examines the ecology of freshwater and estuarine wetlands. The initial chapters address the physical aspects of wetland environments. In particular, they examine the basics of geomorphology, biogeochemistry, soils, and hydrology in wetlands. The book also explores how abiotic factors, specifically hydrology and chemistry, constrain wetland plants and animals, and elaborates on the physiological and ecological strategies employed by biota to cope with those stresses.

Landscape geomorphology influences how water moves over or through the soil, and thus hillslope hydrology and local hydrologic budgets affect soil properties and determine the formation of wetland soils. A complete understanding of wetland formation, wetland ecology, and wetland management requires a basic understanding of soils, including soil properties, soil processes, and soil variability. This chapter explores how soils and landscapes influence the local hydrologic cycle to lead to the development of wetland hydrology. It then looks at some fundamental soil properties, and how they lead to and respond to the development of wetland hydrology. Finally, the chapter considers specific types of wetland ecosystems and discusses their general distribution, origin, hydrology, soil, and vegetation.

This chapter investigates the role of substrate geology and river basin geomorphology in the formation of the fauna in South America. It suggests that the major biogeographic patterns was influenced by the granitic Guiana and Brazilian shields, the foreland sedimentary basins of the western Amazon and the intracratonic sedimentary basins along the Amazon fault system. It argues against the use of areas of endemism in biogeographic analyses and highlights the composite nature of regional fish species assemblages.

The Cenozoic evolution of Africa cannot be comprehended satisfactorily without reference to the early history of the Gondwana supercontinent and the events that occurred during and following its fragmentation. Gondwana first formed during the Neoproterozoic Pan-African-Brazilian orogeny (720–580 million years ago (Ma)). The closing of the Paleotethys gulf during the collision of Laurasia with Gondwana in the late Palaeozoic completed the growth phase. The volcanism that preceded rifting along both coasts of southern Africa had one particularly important consequence: a combination of thermal effects and magmatic underplating created a high “rim bulge” that resulted in the presence of significant coastal escarpments when separation occurred. This chapter discusses the impact of plate tectonics on Africa during the Phanerozoic. It chronicles the closing of the Neotethys to form the Mediterranean Sea when Arabia and Asia collided between 16.5 and 15 Ma. It also discusses the East African Rift System and its importance for paleontology, macroscale geomorphic evolution during the Cenozoic, African geomorphology and the African Surface, and the deserts of Africa.

The El Alamein Project began in 2008 as a research project promoted by the University of Padova (Italy) and the Italian Society of Military Geography and Geology in order to study and preserve the El Alamein battlefields. The conditions of ordinary soldiers, manning the dusty outposts in the desert, crouching for days in foxholes and trenches, is clearly revealed and documented in this absorbing account of the University of Padova's geomorphic project of mapping and analyzing the desert battle terrain. Surveying and documenting these areas before the site is transformed to an extent that results in the disappearance of such remarkable and unique historical war remains, is now clearly essential. The El Alamein Project has two goals. The first is to establish a complete, detailed database of military archeological remains, and to publish the associated findings. Second, to create from those findings a framework of guidelines for the development of a well designed historical, cultural, tourist site on the old battlefield.

Abstract: Streams play a critical role in the movement of water, sediment and nutrients across our landscape. Streams provide habitat to both aquatic and terrestrial life, and in many instances, streams support societal needs such as transportation and recreation. As such, streams are a vital part of our environment. Unfortunately, anthropogenic activities such as urbanization, agriculture, and resource extraction have degraded many of our streams to the point where they can no longer provide many of these services. Through stream restoration, we are able to restore many of these ecosystem functions while also reconnecting people and communities to streams.

Traditional narrative explanations of prehistory have become increasingly difficult to operationalize as models and to test against archaeological data. As such models become more sophisticated and complex, they also become less amenable to objective evaluation with anthropological data. Nor is it possible to experiment with living or prehistoric human beings or societies. Agentbased modeling offers intriguing possibilities for overcoming the experimental limitations of archaeology by representing the behavior of culturally relevant agents on landscapes. Manipulating the behavior of artificial agents on such landscapes allows us to, as it were, "rewind the tape" of sociocultural history and to experimentally examine the relative contributions of internal and external factors to sociocultural evolution (Gumerman and Kohler in press). Agent-based modeling allows the creation of variable resource (or other) landscapes that can be wholly imaginary or that can capture important aspects of real-world situations. These landscapes are populated with heterogeneous agents. Each agent is endowed with various attributes (e.g., life span, vision, movement capabilities, nutritional requirements, consumption and storage capacities) in order to replicate important features of individuals or relevant social units such as households, lineages, clans, and villages. A set of anthropologically plausible rules defines the ways in which agents interact with the environment and with one another. Altering the agents' attributes, their interaction rules, and features of the landscape allow experimental examination of behavioral responses to different initial conditions, relationships, and spatial and temporal parameters. The agents' repeated interactions with their social and physical landscapes reveal ways in which they respond to changing environmental and social conditions. As we will see, even relatively simple models may illuminate complex sociocultural realities. While potentially powerful, agent-based models in archaeology remain unverified until they are evaluated against actual cases. The degree of fit between a model and real-world situations allows the model's validity to be assessed. A close fit between all or part of a model and the test data indicates that the model, albeit highly simplified, has explanatory power. Lack of fit implies that the model is in some way inadequate.

Wetlands are land areas with shallow water or saturated soils that support a wide variety of plants not found somewhere else in the surrounding uplands. Although wetlands share a number of similarities with nearby aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, they have two unique features: anaerobic soils and macrophytes. Wetlands are found in almost every climatic zone in every continent except Antarctica. They can be classified based on their hydrology, vegetation, and/or geomorphology.

Landscape change in Suisun Marsh is best understood as a continuum, allowing us to compare and contrast shifting influences on ecological processes. The historical record reveals differential rates and types of ecological changes in subregions of this wetland before reclamation activities such as diking and water diversion began. Underlying geomorphic processes that are obscured by contemporary management practices can inform future strategies, and a clearer picture of the biotic community can help set appropriate targets for diversity, abundance, and functionality.

The long history of change in Suisun Marsh is reviewed as the basis for future management, followed by assessments of likely changes to terrestrial and aquatic habitats if present trends continue. Sea-level rise, geomorphic processes, the marsh as a novel ecosystem, and restoration trajectories are considered, as are the importance of the marsh as open space and its potential for ecological reconciliation. This information is synthesized to present four scenarios as alternative futures: Fortress Marsh, Flooded Marsh, EcoMarsh, and Planned Accommodation Marsh. While ecological change to the marsh is inevitable, it can be directed, to some extent, by understanding likely trajectories under different management regimes.

Wildebeest are abundant in Serengeti. Comparisons of specific attributes of wildebeest with other sympatric herbivores are necessary. Each section builds on the results of the previous sections to form a complete story that combines biology, behavior, and the geomorphology of the Serengeti ecosystem; it explains how a single species can outnumber all other species. Specific aspects of wildebeest diet and reproduction, combined with their capacity to move long distances in an ecosystem with a predictable nutrient gradient enables migrant wildebeest to escape regulation by predation or food quality, and this combination enables wildebeest to dominate the ecosystem beyond the capacity of any other competitor species. Wildebeest are super-abundant in Serengeti because the ecosystem closely matches their requirements.

Yucatec land and labor arrangements before and after Spanish incursions are examined for ruptures and continuities. The Western concept of private property is found to ring hollow in a landscape in which intersecting spheres of authority (including those of supernaturals) guide protocols of access and extraction. Furthermore, no simple dichotomy between pre- and post-colonial can explain the range of land arrangements and networks of labor that existed across Yucatán. Through the input of labor or as a consequence of geomorphology, a patchwork of high-productivity micro-environments can be found across Yucatán and on Cozumel Island. Cultivation and/or extraction at these resource-intensive production zones encompassed a large range of labor arrangements and interdependencies during Pre-Columbian times. In general, land and labor are conceptualized as suspended within relationships of shifting authority. In reference to both land labor, authors break with the construct of “control over” and embrace the phrase “authority to,” which recognizes the role of negotiation and the inclusion of supernatural forces perceived to have played a structuring role in the disposition of land and labor.

This chapter presents a synopsis of the geology of Costa Rica with an emphasis on the most recent history, particularly the Quaternary and within that the Holocene. After providing an overview of the tectonic basis for Costa Rica’s complex geology, the majority of the chapter consists of an up-to-date account of the main morphotectonic regions, summarizing the geology and geomorphology of each, and well as the results of several recent surveys of marine geology. The chapter also presents a summary of the fossil mammals and plants that have been reported as well as a discussion of paleoenvironments and climate change during the Pleistocene and Holocene. The chapter ends with a brief summary of Costa Rica’s geological history from 170 million years ago at the final separation of North and South America to 2011 with the renewed dormancy of the Arenal volcano.

This chapter reviews the geological context of Florida’s springs and the St. Johns River valley. This provides a basis for understanding the abundance of springs in Florida and the forces that drive their geographic distribution and hydrology. The chapter begins with a sketch of the geologic history of the Florida Platform and the formation of the karst Floridan Aquifer system, with emphasis on those events and processes relevant to springs. This is followed by a discussion of the environmental factors affecting spring flow and how these were impacted by global and regional climatic changes during the late Pleistocene and Holocene. Finally, it discusses the geomorphology of the St. Johns River valley and the springs that feed into it.

This chapter examines tomb construction and its use from the Neolithic through the late Pre-Islamic period on the Gulf Peninsula of Qatar. Geomorphological and environmental factors that may have influenced mortuary practices are considered. The authors present evidence that suggests that the density of cairns was influenced by landscape, geomorphology, and hydrology. Further, the authors understand that more information is necessary before other researches make comparisons of similar tombs from other regions of the Arabian Peninsula.

Water resources geography expanded its spatial, regional, and intellectual horizons during the 1990s. Tobin et al. (1989) reviewed earlier US geographers’ contributions to the hydrologic sciences, water management, water quality, law, and hazards; and they identified three emerging topics: (1) theory development and model formulation; (2) applied problem-solving and policy recommendations; and (3) international water problems. This chapter assesses progress along those and other fronts, beginning with historical and disciplinary perspectives. Charting the progress of a field requires a sense of its history, and Platt’s (1993) review of geographic contributions to water resource administration in the US offers a useful perspective on policy-related research, beginning with George Perkins Marsh and John Wesley Powell. Doolittle (2000) reaches back to Native American antecedents in water resource management in North America (cf. chapters in this volume on cultural ecology, historical geography, and Native American geography). Carney (1998) sheds light on African influences on rice cultivation in the southeastern US. Research on European antecedents ranges from seventeenth-century “hydrologic” theories in England (Tuan 1968) to hydraulic engineering at the École des Ponts et Chausées in France, water courts in Spain, and more distant Muslim and Asian contacts (e.g. Beach and Luzzader-Beach 2000; Bonine 1996; Butzer 1994; Lightfoot 1997; Swyngedouw 1999; Wescoat 2000). In the field of water law and institutions, Templer (1997) has linked recent geographic work on Western water laws with earlier research in political geography. A historical geographic study of water rights transfers from irrigated ranches in the South Platte River headwaters to Denver, Colorado, has shed new light on how urban economic and political power employ and reshape water law (Kindquist 1996). The battle between Owen’s Valley and Los Angeles continues to stimulate historical geographic research on relations among facts, laws, and their social meanings (Sauder 1994). Although a geographic perspective of international water laws has yet to be written, databases on transboundary conflicts and agreements shed light on the evolution of international water law (Wolf 1997, 1999a, b; and <http://www.transboundarywaters.orst.edu>, last accessed 10 February 2003). Historical or contemporary, the pragmatic spirit of water resources geography remains strong (Wescoat 1992).