Human Environment Interaction/Cultural Ecology

1. Human Environment Interaction/Cultural Ecology

2. World Climate Regions Fig. 1-14: The modified Köppen system divides the world into five main climate regions.

3. Cultural ecology • Four schools of thought developed by geographers on cultural ecology • Environmental determinism • Possibilism • Environmental perception • Humans as modifiers of the earth

4. Environmental determinism • Developed during the first quarter of the 20th century. • Physical environment provided a dominant force in shaping cultures • Humans were clay to be molded by nature • Believed mountain people, because they lived in rugged terrain were: • Backward • Conservative • Unimaginative • Freedom loving

5. Environmental determinism • Believed desert dwellers were: • Likely to believe in one god • Lived under the rule of tyrants • Temperate climates produced: • Inventiveness • Industriousness • Democracy • Coastlands with fjords produced navigators and fishers • Overestimated the role of environment

6. Possibilism • Took the place of determinism in the 1920s • Cultural heritage at least as important as physical environment in affecting human behavior • Believe people are the primary architects of culture

7. Possibilism • Chongqing and San Francisco • Similar environment • Street patterns • SF has smaller population but larger area • What do these contrasts suggest about the merits of environmental determinism and possibilism or the role of culture?

8. Possibilism • Physical environment offers numerous ways for a culture to develop. • People make culture trait choices from the possibilities offered by their environment to satisfy their needs. • High technology societies are less influenced by physical environment. • Geographer Jim Norwin warns control over environment may be an illusion because of possible future climatic changes.

9. Environmental perception • Geomancy—a traditional system of land-use planning dictating that certain environmental settings, perceived by the sages as auspicious, should be chosen as the sites for houses, villages, temples, and graves (feng-shui) • an East Asian world view and art • affected the location and morphology of urban places in countries such as China and Korea • diffused (look up feng-shui on internet)

10. Natural hazards • Human’s perceptions of natural hazards • Flooding, hurricanes, volcanic eruption, earthquakes, insect infestations, and droughts • Some cultures consider them as unavoidable acts of the gods sent down as punishments because of the people’s shortcomings • During times of natural disasters, some cultures feel the government should take care of them • Western cultures feel technology should be able to solve the problems created by natural hazards

11. Natural hazards • In virtually all cultures, people knowingly inhabit hazard zones • Especially floodplains, exposed coastal sites, drought-prone regions, and active volcanic areas • More Americans than ever live in hurricane- and earthquake-prone areas of the United States

12. Monserrat - 1996

13. Missouri River

14. Hazard Perception • Levees failed to prevent the Mississippi and Missouri rivers from flooding. • Floods are natural occurrences and contrary to the perception of some, human made devices are directed toward control rather than prevention. • When the water recedes and tons of muck and debris are removed, will the farmer move back and start over?

15. Natural hazards • Migrants tend to imagine new homelands as being more similar to their old homelands than is actually the case • Human’s perceptions of natural resources • Hunting and gathering cultures • Agricultural groups • Industrial societies Organic vs. Mechanistic view of Nature

16. Humans as modifiers of the earth • Another facet of cultural ecology • In a sense, the opposite of environmental determinism • George Perkins Marsh • Example of soil erosion around Athens in ancient times

17. Humans as modifiers of the earth • Human modification varies from one culture to another • Geographers seek alternative, less destructive modes of environmental modification • Humans of the Judeo-Christian tradition tend to regard environmental modification as divinely approved • Other more cautious groups take care not to offend the forces of nature

18. Environmental Modification in the Netherlands Fig. 1-15: Polders and dikes have been used for extensive environmental modification in the Netherlands.

19. Environmental Modification in Florida Fig. 1-16: Straightening the Kissimmee River has had many unintended side effects.

20. C-38 CanalFlorida The canal has carried water with agricultural runoff and pollution into Lake Okeechobee

21. Environmental modification

22. Queensland, Australia • Rainforest north of Cairns, signs demonstrate conflicting perceptions of a particular resource. • Thousands of acres of Australian rainforest destroyed yearly.