Approaches for Linking People,Place, and Environment for Human Dimensions Research

Abstract

Much of the human dimensions of environmental change research emphasize the mapping and modeling of land use and land cover patterns over space and time, and the linkages between people, place, and environment as proximate and distal forces of landscape dynamics. Spatial digital technologies, framed within a GIScience (GISc) context, figure prominently in the characterization of land use and land cover through remote sensing technologies, and in the assessment of social and demographic factors and local and regional site and situation considerations achieved through global positioning systems, data visualizations, and spatial and statistical analyses. Here, we describe some fundamental approaches for linking data across thematic domains, essential for the study of human‐environment interactions. The goal is to generate compatible data sets that extend across social, biophysical, and geographical domains so that the causes and consequences of land use and land cover dynamics might be explored within a spatially‐explicit context.