Materializing post-colonial geographies: examining the textural landscapes of migration in the South Asian home

This paper considers the role of visual cultures in understanding the value of landscape to post-colonial migrants living in Britain. The paper also considers these visual cultures as prismatic devices which refract lived landscapes of South Asia and East Africa into British domestic scene. The visual cultures are investigated using a materialist lens. They are positioned as materials that allow embodied connections to landscapes experienced pre-migration, including sensory connections with past homes, natures and family life. These then become artefacts symbolising relationships with past landscapes, made meaningful in their presence in Britain homes. Using this materialist lens, visual cultures in the British Asian home, such as photographs, pictures, and paintings, are given meaning and value beyond their textual content. This paper is an exercise in reading visual cultures in the everyday through a materialist lens which allows for an examination of their place in the process of ‘making home' for South Asian women in Britain. In particular, objects presence the migratory experience of the South Asian community, importing ‘other' landscapes (previously shaped by colonial governance) into Britain, and help to shape environmental values, landscape imaginaries and South Asian landscapes of belonging in the post-colonial period.     

The contribution of Dutch landscape painters to the conservation of geoheritage

Landscape images are a way to register geoheritage, and we have applied it here in a consideration of the landscapes of the Netherlands. Before the 1950s these landscapes were documented chiefly by landscape painters; with useful photographs of limited availability. We have looked through a large number of paintings of Dutch landscapes to assess their geoheritage value, and present here a first reconnaissance.     

Landscape diagnosis as a geographical contribution to landscape management

Geographical analysis, diagnosis and prognosis of landscape centre on regional questions. Within this framework landscape diagnosis helps to evaluate capabilities of or hazards to landscape elements or landscape units, starting from an analysis of the equipment of the landscape and of land use patterns, taking into account tendencies of their development. Landscape diagnosis is connected with landscape prognosis, which characterizes conditions and processes of changes in the landscape and contributes to decision making with regard to landscape development. Examples from the densely populated areas round Halle and Karl-Marx-Stadt and the fruit-growing Havel region around Potsdam will serve to show that small-scaled and medium-scaled landscape diagnoses can be developed as secondary diagnoses mainly on the basis of thematic maps, which can then be used in the offices for regional planning in the GDR. Large-scaled landscape diagnoses, however, will be shown as directly derived from field data and as immediately applicable (as a working basis) to landscape management. The synthetic aspect, which takes into consideration the present state and the development of landscape as a whole, will apply to all scales.     

Effects of land use change on landscape pattern of the Manas River watershed in Xinjiang, China

The mechanism of interaction between land use change and landscape pattern is pivotal in research concerning global environmental change. Quantitative evaluation of land use change that has resulted from excessive land development and its impact on landscape pattern are important for sustainable utilization of local land resources. The study area was the Manas River watershed, a typical watershed in an arid area. The present study evaluated the influence of long-term land use change on the landscape pattern; the findings are valuable for economic development and environmental protection. The processes for land use change and changes in landscape pattern were reconstructed and analyzed for data in topographic maps dated 1962 and in remote sensing images taken in 1976, 1989, 1999 and 2008 using mathematical models and landscape metrics. The results indicate significant changes in land use over the past 50 years, with increases in the areas of cultivated land and construction land, and a significant decrease in unused land and woodland areas; grassland and water resources first increased and then tended to decrease over this time. The comprehensive index of land use change is 0.55, indicating an unbalanced, one-way transition in the study area. Landscape fragmentation and diversity increased and landscape dominance decreased; in other words, differences between landscapes decreased. The changes resulted in a significant tendency toward diversity and fragmentation of the landscape. Therefore, large-scale intensive agricultural development can reduce the negative influence of land use change on the landscape pattern.     

疏勒河中、下游盆地景观环境变化分析

通过70－90年代中期遥感卫片解译，对疏勒河中，下游盆地生态景观进行分类，阐述了分布特征，应用GIS技术计算各类景观面积，分析了时空分布变化和成因，指出了两重点盆地存在的主要环境地质问题，提出了合理利用水土资源和保护生态环境的建议。     

Landscape care paradoxes: Swedish landscape care arrangements in a European context

Contemporary European agriculture has a number of additional aims beside of food production, such as safeguarding environmental services and conservation values. Substantial efforts at official levels are aimed towards sustainable development but also towards maintaining values of what may be termed vanishing landscapes. Selected areas and landscape features are set aside for protection or restoration. Individual efforts of this type have a long history in Sweden, and the issue has recently received increased attention, primarily due to more ambitious government goals concerning biodiversity conservation and Sweden’s ratification of the European Landscape Convention. This has resulted in an increased scientific and official interest in vanishing values in the rural landscape, where parts of Eastern Europe, such as the Maramures district in Romania, have been used as model examples of land use regimes which in the past was common in Sweden. In this context, the dilemma of romanticizing peasants’ use of land is highlighted and discussed more than has hitherto been done. This paper sheds light on some paradoxes inherent in official policies in relation to land use practices concerning the management of rural landscapes in Sweden, and relates the Swedish situation to a contrasting example of landscape practice in Romania. We discuss the concept of landscape care in relation to the construction and perception of landscape values and valuable landscapes through the lenses of rural realities and official policies. When Swedish authorities engage in the promotion of landscape care, they tend to work with slices of land, specific predefined values and individual farmers, and they often disregard the need to treat the landscape as a socio-ecological complex dynamic in space and time. We discuss how environmental policy generally could be improved through the adoption of a more inclusive and flexible approach towards aiding the different aims inherent in multifunctional rural landscapes.     

喀斯特峡谷洞穴景区景观保育与发展协同评价研究——以云南九乡峡谷洞穴景区为例

建立自然保护、恢复与社会经济发展相协调的保护地评价指标体系,以达到评估景观保育情况,分析在社会经济发展中的作用,获取景观保育持续提升的方向和对策是本文目标。以云南九乡峡谷洞穴景区为例,设计了景区景观的自然性、功能性和属地性指数评价体系。九乡景区景观自然性指数为7.004,属次生景观类;景区功能性指数是7.58,属发展型景区;属地性指数6.8,属景区产业向服务社区与居民就业方向转型的过渡产业型景区。根据九乡景区景观格局和保护利用状态,提出四个景观保育区,分别是乡土植物廊道和文化景观保育区、峡谷河道景观保育区、峡谷洞穴景观与地表植被保育区、植被管护与石漠化治理区等。景观保育措施主要是自然保育与恢复,以实现管理景观自然化,同时发展景区社区主导的旅游服务业与开发民特产品,增强景观保护的社会经济基础。      

The use of landscape evolution models in mining rehabilitation design

Landscape evolution models can be useful tools for the evaluation of rehabilitation designs for post-mining landscapes. When calibrated for the erodible material, landscape evolution models can predict sediment loss over entire landscapes (i.e. tonnes/hectare/year), method of erosion (i.e. slope wash, gullying) and also where on a hillslope erosion is likely to occur. The models provide the ability to examine simple hillslopes through to complex whole landscapes. These models can also be used for a probabilistic risk assessment of rehabilitation design for high-risk situations such as tailings dams. Importantly, unlike other erosion models they allow the eroded landscape to be visualised. This paper outlines the capabilities of the SIBERIA landscape evolution model for the rehabilitation of mining landscapes and proposes a probabilistic approach for risk assessment and site stability.     

额济纳蒙古族民间景观格局反映的区域环境状况

以内蒙古额济纳旗为例,对当地土尔扈特蒙古族自18世纪初定牧于此开始,至20世纪之前形成的水域、植被和沙丘3大类蒙古族民间自然景观类型进行了研究.水域景观格局特征表明,相对于现代生态环境状况,在20世纪之前,额济纳冲积平原水环境较为优越,整个地区水域景观广布,地下水埋藏较浅.在植被景观格局方面,两河地区主要以胡杨-沙枣河岸林和河岸湿地为主;两湖地区主要以芦苇沼泽-芨芨草草甸和湖岸梭梭林为主;整个地区植被景观处于早期演替阶段.绿洲内部荒漠沙丘景观分布格局体现了干旱荒漠地区的景观基质特征.     

锥状喀斯特区溶洞景观特征及其旅游资源评价

锥状喀斯特是湿热带地区重要的喀斯特地貌景观类型和高品位的旅游资源。发育在锥状喀斯特地区的溶洞既是锥状喀斯特地貌景观的重要组成部分,也是发展旅游不可替代的景观资源。本文从这一认识出发,首先揭示了锥状喀斯特及溶洞发育的四大特征: ( 1)溶洞成因类型多样; ( 2)是深、长、大洞的主要发育区;( 3)不同锥状喀斯特发育阶段,洞穴类型组合不同; ( 4)能形成溶蚀、沉积形态丰富、造型奇特、美学价值很高的溶洞景观集群。在此基础上,进行了初步的旅游价值评价,指出在旅游开发中具有三大资源优势: ( 1)洞穴资源具有多功能性(科研、探险、观光旅游、生态旅游、医疗等)。( 2)构成独特的高品位峰林— 溶洞(地面、地下)综合景观类型。( 3)景观资源的高度互补性可提高旅游景观内涵的丰度和旅游经济效益。      

中国水系沉积物39种元素系列背景值

中国以水系沉积物测量为主的区域地球化学调查自1978年开始以来,已覆盖陆地面积约690×104 km2,积累了海量的高质量基础地球化学数据.在这些数据的开发利用中不同地区、不同范围间的数据对比是研究元素分散富集、成矿趋势、异常评价的一项重要内容.以全国1:20万水系沉积物测量数据为依据,采用全部原始数据,以X±3S为临界值一次性剔除异点后的数据集的中位数作为背景值的估计值,使用统一方法计算出了全国范围、9个大地构造单元、12个地球化学景观区、19个成矿带的39种元素水系沉积物背景值,探讨了全国范围、不同构造单元、不同景观区、不同成矿带各元素背景值的区域分布规律和特征.研究表明不同的景观区、不同的成矿带、不同的大地构造单元,由于地质背景和景观条件不同,元素的地球化学分布特征也不同,表现出不同的区域分布特点和分布模式.这些背景值为进一步深入开发利用区域化探数据和资料提供了可供对比的基础数据.      

丹霞地貌景观调查的遥感技术应用研究

以江西省丹霞地貌景观为研究对象,介绍了遥感和地理信息系统技术在丹霞地貌景观旅游资源调查中应用的原理和方法;根据已知丹霞地貌景观的遥感影像、地质背景、三维地形模型、地形坡度等多元信息特征,总结了丹霞地貌景观的解译标志;利用这些解译标志对江西省丹霞地貌景观进行详细解译。结果表明,江西省有丹霞地貌景观123处,其中新发现的有78处。为江西省的旅游发展规划和丹霞地貌景观旅游资源的开发评价提供了重要依据。     

地质景观的素描初探

为了推广地质景观素描在地质公园的应用,提升地学旅游品味与质量,本文以素描为例,对地质景观的艺术展示技术进行了探讨,介绍了地质景观素描的特点及其与传统地质素描的区别。按照所绘制景观形态的不同对地质景观素描进行了分类,系统阐述了地质景观素描的绘制原理和方法,并以敦煌雅丹地貌为例展示了地质景观素描的具体绘图步骤与技巧。地质景观素描是对具有观赏价值和科学价值的地质遗迹景观的绘制,既注重表达地质景观深层的科学内涵,又注重艺术性与生动性。此外,本文就地质景观素描在地质公园中的应用也进行了讨论,主要包括地质公园推广宣传、地质公园解说牌、地质公园纪念品、地质公园网站以及地学科普,并针对这些应用提出了相应的建议。     

Natural conditions and problems of their complex utilization in the German Democratic Republic

While the natural structures of the GDR territory influenced by geological features and relief formation show a north-south sequence, variations in climate belong to a more northwest-southeast directed differentiation by maritime to continental features. Already since the Middle Ages the natural conditions of this territory have been utilized by man, at present many socially necessary functions of natural regions require rational and effective solutions for the complex utilization of nature and its resources. In order to support decisionmakers by scientific foundations for the solution of these problems, Physical Geography is concerned chiefly with three tasks: 1. Determination of the suitability and carrying capacity with regard to certain requirements of society (landscape survey). 2. Analysis of the functioning of landscape systems by the investigation of natural processes and technogene impacts on them by different forms of use. 3. Elaboration of scientific foundations in order to render possible a rational utilization and effective forms of control of natural and technogene determined landscape processes.     

“You kill the dam,you are killing a part of me”: Dam removal and the environmental politics of river restoration

River restoration through dam removal provides an opportunity to investigate the changing nature of environmental conflicts and politics in long-humanized landscapes. In New England, where over 14,000 dams fragment the region’s rivers, dam removals are often highly contested. This is due, in part, to how the intertwined roles of history, identity, and aesthetics coalesce to create attachment to place and inspire the defense of dammed landscapes. Dam removal provides a useful lens to consider the following: How do the historical and geographical contingencies of this region shape and alter conflicts over dam removal in specific ways? In instances where conflicts emerge, what do the conflicts reveal about the politics of ecological restoration in highly altered landscapes? We use a political ecology approach to reveal how complex cultural dynamics, competing interpretations of science and the environment, micropolitics, and the role of multiple actors generate and shape conflicts over dam removal. We show that the historical geography of New England influence conflicts over removal in important ways, particularly with regard to the roles of aesthetics and identity in landscapes that are characterized largely by consumptive as opposed to productive uses. Our findings also suggest that restoration in long-humanized landscapes will embroil new constellations of human and nonhuman actors, requiring attention to the political and cultural, as well as the ecological, dimensions of restoration. This paper contributes to research on the political and social dimensions of dam removal, as well as to research at the nexus of ecological restoration and environmental politics.     

Marginal formations of the last Kara and Barents ice sheets in northern European Russia

Glacial landforms in northern Russia, from the Timan Ridge in the west to the east of the Urals, have been mapped by aerial photographs and satellite images supported by field observations. An east-west trending belt of fresh hummock-and-lake glaciokarst landscapes has been traced to the north of 67°N. The southern boundary of these landscapes is called the Markhida Line, which is interpreted as a nearly synchronous limit of the last ice sheet that affected this region. The hummocky landscapes are subdivided into three types according to the stage of postglacial modification: Markhida, Harbei and Halmer. The Halmer landscape on the Uralian piedmont in the east is the freshest, whereas the westernmost Markhida landscape is more eroded. The west-east gradient in morphology is considered to be a result of the time-transgressive melting of stagnant glacier ice and of the underlying permafrost. The pattern of ice-pushed ridges and other directional features reflects a dominant ice flow direction from the Kara Sea shelf. Traces of ice movement from the central Barents Sea are only discernible in the Pechora River left bank area west of 50°E. In the Polar Urals the horseshoe-shaped end moraines at altitudes of up to 560 m a.s.l. reflect ice movement up-valley from the Kara Ice Sheet, indicating the absence of a contemporaneous ice dome in the mountains. The Markhida moraines, superimposed onto the Eemian strata, represent the maximum ice sheet extent in the western part of the Pechora Basin during the Weichselian. The Markhida Line truncates the huge arcs of the Laya-Adzva and Rogovaya ice-pushed ridges protruding to the south. The latter moraines therefore reflect an older ice advance, probably also of Weichselian age. Still farther south, fluvially dissected morainic plateaus without lakes are of pre-Eemian age, because they plunge northwards under marine Eemian sediments. Shorelines of the large ice-dammed Lake Komi, identified between 90 and 110 m a.s.l. in the areas south of the Markhida Line, are radiocarbon dated to be older than 45 ka. The shorelines, incised into the Laya-Adzva moraines, morphologically interfinger with the Markhida moraines, indicating that the last ice advance onto the Russian mainland reached the Markhida Line during the Middle or Early Weichselian, before 45 ka ago.     

Virtualizing Los Angeles: Pierre Levy, <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Shield</Emphasis>, and http://theshieldrap.proboards45.com/

I explore how Pierre Levy’s virtualization works between actual places, television, and the Internet by referencing the real landscapes of Los Angeles, the visualized landscapes of the FX network television show The Shield, and the cyberscapes of . Unlike current Deleuzean-based theories of visualization that privilege the passage from the virtual to the actual, Levy focuses instead on how virtualization moves back from the real/actual toward the virtual. I argue that this philosophical reversal illustrates the way in which the virtual constitutes the viewer/consumer and thus functions to resituate the virtual within the body through the use of digital landscapes. I further argue, using The Shield as the modality, that the virtual is necessarily an element of the very body which it serves to constitute because the virtual is indeed an essential part of the determination of the geographies of every concrete biocultural body. My example of The Shield becomes the means by which we can bring the force of the virtual, in the form of web-based landscapes, to bear on our experience. I use the show and its Internet counterpart as the catalyst for an expansion of the margin of indetermination constitutive of our technically-facilitated embodiment. By further relating the TV show to our seemingly playful interactions with the digital landscape, I explore how this interaction crosses multiple scales and multiple viewing modalities and further blurs the borders of experiential reality and the visualization of fantasized landscapes. The Shield’s representations of the Los Angeles landscape become embodied experiences for viewers of the show and by virtualizing the real landscapes of Los Angeles and their televisual counterparts, allows consumers to know the spaces of the city through their virtual experience of place as imagined by the website and its members. Thus, I show how Levy’s virtualization theories can be used to specify the virtual dimension constitutive of human experience.     

Hillslope Topography from Unconstrained Photographs

Quantifications of Earth surface topography are essential for modeling the connections between physical and chemical processes of erosion and the shape of the landscape. Enormous investments are made in developing and testing process-based landscape evolution models. These models may never be applied to real topography because of the difficulties in obtaining high-resolution (1–2 m) topographic data in the form of digital elevation models (DEMs). Here we present a simple methodology to extract the high-resolution three-dimensional topographic surface from photographs taken with a hand-held camera with no constraints imposed on the camera positions or field survey. This technique requires only the selection of corresponding points in three or more photographs. From these corresponding points the unknown camera positions and surface topography are simultaneously estimated. We compare results from surface reconstructions estimated from high-resolution survey data from field sites in the Oregon Coast Range and northern California to verify our technique. Our most rigorous test of the algorithms presented here is from the soil-mantled hillslopes of the Santa Cruz marine terrace sequence. Results from three unconstrained photographs yield an estimated surface, with errors on the order of 1 m, that compares well with high-resolution GPS survey data and can be used as an input DEM in process-based landscape evolution modeling.     

Wetland conservation: Change and fragmentation in Trinidad’s protected areas

Conservation efforts often neglect the importance of monitoring of protected areas, which is key to adaptively managing dynamic landscapes. In many developing countries, like Trinidad, protected areas are set aside as a result of an agreement with an international conservation organization, often resulting in inadequate planning and monitoring of the protected area. Monitoring of protected areas allows for an examination of the conservation scheme implemented and enables improved conservation decisions to be made. The research presented provides an example of the use of technology in monitoring conservation strategies in two protected wetlands, Caroni and Nariva, in Trinidad. Remote sensing and fragmentation analyses are used to quantify land cover change within these two protected wetlands. Results show that the classification of Caroni immediately identifies a shift towards anthropogenic land cover types, suggesting an increase in human activity within the park. This finding is further supported by the continuous measures used, such as decreases in mean NDVI and greenness values suggesting a decrease in the amount or health of the vegetation. While the classification of Nariva suggests a return to natural land covers, the continuous measures of land cover change indicate the opposite. Land cover change analyses are limited in Trinidad and in the Caribbean in general, partly due to satellite data availability, thus this research presents remote sensing and landscape fragmentation analyses as new tools for monitoring land cover change and conservation effectiveness in Trinidad.     

汶川桃关震区生态景观格局时空变化分析与生态地质环境评价

“5．12”汶川地震震区主要位于川西高山峡谷区,本身就较脆弱的生态地质环境受到重创。而生态地质环境是人类社会可持续发展的基础之一,正确评价生态地质环境的质量及其对生态景观格局的效应,是制定和规划灾后重建的重要依据。从以往研究来看,借助于遥感与GIS技术对高山峡谷山区生态地质环境及生态景观格局时空效应进行全面而定量的研究较少,尤其是应用高空间分辨率卫星遥感图像和航空图像进行地震灾区前后对比分析的尚未见到。 本文以汶川县桃关地区为例,应用遥感与GIS技术,探讨了生态景观格局时空变化研究方法和生态地质环境评价思路,基于高精度卫片／航片以及震后地形图等资料,提取了桃关地区景观时空分布信息和生态地质环境因子,分析了生态景观格局时空变化效应,并采用“加权指数求和法”评价模型对生态地质环境进行综合运算,得到地震前后生态地质环境评价等级图及受损区域分布图。最后。从生态地质环境和生态景观两方面准确地对震区地质生态脆弱性进行了评估,为山区居民经济发展和居住地址的合理规划提供有力的理论依据。