MASS WASTING IN THE SWAUK WATERSHED,WASHINGTON

Mass wasting evidence is common along the margins of the Columbia River Basalts. I identified, mapped, dated, and assessed the environment of nearly 160 discrete slope failures (excluding rockfall) along the margins of the Columbia River Basalts in the Swauk watershed of central Washington. Rotational slides, translational slides, flows, and complex slide-flows were identified via topographic map, airphoto, and field analysis. Geographic information systems analysis revealed that these features cover 38% of the watershed. Translational slides are the most numerous of the slope failures, whereas complex slide-flows cover the most area. I placed each slope failure into a relative age category (active, inactive-young, inactive mature, and inactive-old) based on the characteristics of the main scarp, lateral flanks, internal morphology, vegetation cover, and toe relationships. Most Swauk watershed slope failures are inactive-mature. Organic sediments from an inactive-mature sag pond formed ～6880 ¹⁴C yr BP, whereas inactive-young sediments dated at ～5930 ¹⁴C yr BP. Inactive slope failures are often associated with steep slopes, inclined beds, incompetent geologic units, or streamcuts. Streamcuts, roadcuts, or clearcuts typically accompany active slope failures. Rain-on-snow events and associated mass wasting in winter 1996 provide a plausible trigger analog for inactive mass wasting. Rockfall deposits cover ～29% of the watershed, range from inactive to active in age, and occur atop pre-existing slope failures in well-jointed Columbia River Basalts. Mass wasting has played a key role in shaping the topographic and hydrologic patterns of the watershed. [Key words: mass wasting, watershed, Washington state, Columbia River Basalts, rain-onsnow.]     

Determinism within human–environment research and the rediscovery of environmental causation

The popularity of the work Guns, germs and steel (GGS) has served to bring the question of human–environment connections once again to the forefront of popular thought. We assert that the recent success of GGS represents both a persistence of environmental determinist logic and a contemporary trend that privileges the environment as the primary influence on human–environment relationships. The historical development of the human–environment field is reviewed from the cultural and political ecology (CAPE) perspective, with particular attention to illustrating the varying emphasis between humans and their environment. GGS is situated within this developing field through a critical analysis of the arguments and methods forwarded by Jared Diamond. The book is found to mirror earlier environmental determinism by failing to take into account many of the advances in human–environmental thought since the early twentieth century. Its popular success suggests the pitfalls of failures to acknowledge the complex, intertwined and indivisible relationship that exists among humans and their environment. Furthermore, there is evidence that the environmental determinism espoused in GGS has caught the attention of international development policymakers potentially influencing future outlays of aid and assistance to the developing world. These conclusions raise cautionary flags against repeating past theoretical mistakes by accepting simplistic, causal explanations based largely on a deterministic conception of the natural environment.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviewed in this article: Rabat: Urban Apartheid in Morocco . Janet Abu -Lughod . Marketplaces in a Developing Country: The Case of Western Nigeria . Isaac Ayinde Adalemo . Farming Development and Space: A World Agricultural Geography . Bernd Andreae . Section and Party: A Political Geography of American Presidential Elections, from Andrew Jackson to Ronald Reagan . J. Clark Archer and Peter J. Taylor . Women and Space: Ground Rules and Social Maps . Shirley Ardener , ed. European Progress in Spatial Analysis . R. J. Bennett , ed. The Origins of Academic Geography in the United States . Brian W. Blouet Geographic Perspectives on Global Problems . Ronald Reed Boyce . Seasonal Dimensions to Rural Poverty . Robert Chambers , Richard Longhurst and Arnold Pacey eds. The New Nationalism and the Use of Common Spaces: Issues in Marine Pollution and the Exploitation of Antarctica . Jonathan I. Charney , ed. Communications Tomorrow: The Coming of the Information Society . Edward Cornish , ed. The Design of Suburbia . Arthur Edwards . Explorer on the Northern Plains: Lieutenant Gouverneur K. Warren's Preliminary Report of Explorations in Nebraska and Dakota in the Years 1855–56–57. With an Introduction by Frank N. Schubert . The Changing Climate: Responses of the Natural Flora and Fauna . Michael J. Ford . Essentials of Physical Geography . Robert E. Gabler , Robert J. Sager , Sheila Brazier , and Daniel L. Wise. The Road to Jaramillo . William Glen . Valued Environments . John R. Gold and Jacquelin Burgess , eds. Proximity and Preference: Problems in the Multidimensional Analysis of Large Data Sets . Reginald G. Golledge and John N. Rayner , eds. A Search for Common Ground . Peter Gould and Gunnar Olsson , eds. Geography: Its History and Concepts . Arild Holt -Jensen . A Population Geography . Huw R. Jones . The Human Mosaic: A Thematic Introduction to Cultural Geography, 3rd ed. Terry G. Jordan and Lester Rowntree . Urban Social Geography: An Introduction . Paul Knox . The Anatomy of Job Loss: The How, Why and Where of Employment Decline . Doreen Massey and Richard Meegan . The Information Society as Post-Industial Society . Yoneji Masuda . Map Librarianship, 2nd ed. Harold Nichols . India: Cultural Patterns and Processes . Allen G. Noble and Ashok K. Dutt , eds. The God that Limps: Science and Technology in the Eighties . Colin Norman . Geography: An Introductory Perspective . Robert E. Norris , Keith D. Harries and John D. Vitek . The Politics of Technology Assessment . David M. O'Brien and Donald A. Marchand . Ethnic Segregation in Cities . Ceri Peach , Vaughan Robinson and Susan Smith , eds. Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1980 . Bernard Quinn , Herman Anderson , Martin Bradley , Paul Goetting and Peggy Shriver . Energy in Australia: Politics and Economics . Hugh Saddler . Development from Above or Below? The Dialectics of Regional Planning in Developing Countries . Walter B. Stóuhr and D. R. Fraser Taylor , eds. Human Impact on the Ecosystem . Joy Tivy and Greg O'Hare . Plants and People: Vegetation Change in North America . Thomas R. Vale . The Mapmakers: The Story of the Great Pioneers in Cartography from Antiquity to the Space Age . John Noble Wilford .     

INTERACTIONS BETWEEN SPREAD-AND-BACKWASH,POPULATION TURNAROUND AND CORRIDOR EFFECTS IN THE INTER-METROPOLITAN PERIPHERY: A CASE STUDY

Three recurrent concepts in urban geography are examined in a single area within a portion of the inter-metropolitan periphery, primarily for the 1960-1980 period. This local-scale study attempts to replicate several findings of studies involving larger units dispersed over wider regions. In this portion of the inter-metropolitan periphery, spread-and-backwash was evident in the 1960s, followed by the population turnaround in the 1970s but only within the context of an urban corridor defined with respect to combined metropolitan and nonmetropolitan commuting areas as linked by major highways. The end of the turnaround was also corroborated in the area but there was not clear evidence of a return to an urban-linked growth pattern. This study suggests the existence of a complex rural-area pattern evolving around corridors and hierarchical sets of nonmetropolitan cities, rather than either a simple, uninterrupted march of metropolitanization across a rural landscape or the emergence of a high-tech society freed from such constraints as distance and rural/urban distinctions.     

SIMION MEHEDINI AND MODERN ROMANIAN GEOGRAPHY

The foundations of modern Romanian geography were laid by one man, Simion Mehedini, at the beginning of the twentieth century. His systematic view of a unified geography developed from the ideas formed during his education in France and Germany, particularly under the influence of Ratzel. His ideas, propagated by his followers, are still regarded as valid by the present generation of Romanian geographers.     

智慧社会下的城市地理学研究——基于居民活动的视角

智慧社会下,信息通信技术已经渗透到居民日常生活中各个方面的网络/实体活动经历,是理解智慧社会发展的核心。同时,虚拟—实体空间关系、网络—实体活动关系及其对城市地域空间重构与演化的影响一直得到城市地理学者的广泛关注。在综述已有居民活动时空间研究的基础上,指出智慧社会下居民网络—实体活动的关系已经超越简单的替代—促进二元关系,而承载网络与实体活动的虚拟与实体空间也相互交织影响,挑战对实体空间中地方与移动性的理解,并重构虚拟空间中的秩序和规律,丰富智慧社会下城市地理学的研究问题。超越技术决定论与基于技术决定论的虚实空间二元论的讨论范畴,更能反映城市地理学在智慧社会发展话语体系中的地位。与发达国家不同,中国同时经历着快速的信息化与城镇化,对居民网络/实体活动组织及虚拟—实体空间关系的研究不仅提供了新的案例与理论贡献,而且为城镇化的可持续发展提供实践策略。     

Old Theories in New Places? Environmental Determinism and Bioregionalism*

Bioregionalism is a contemporary environmental movement containing deterministic ideas similar to those of geography's environmental determinism. This paper examines the theoretical and practical implications for bioregionalism based upon the experience of geography by identifying parallels between bioregionalism and environmental determinism in terms of both culture and politics. While not a latter day form of environmental determinism, bioregionalism deterministically links political culture and the environment. By comparing and contrasting environmental determinism with bioregionalism's deterministic tendencies, I identify certain contradictory ideas within bioregionalism. Among the most important contradictions occur when bioregionalists base moral judgements on a form of environmentalism, and when they advocate self determination while promoting environmentally determined lifeways. These ideas lie at the intersection of bioregionalism's social and ecological objectives—where the deterministic nature of bioregionalism is at odds with bioregionalism's decentralized, egalitarian philosophy.     

BIOGEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

In the February 1977 issue of THE PROFESSIONAL GEOGRAPHER Leonard Guelke proposed a new approach to regional geography. This article questions the logic of Guelke's “idealist alternative'’and its applicability to geographical problems.