Wine trails as organizational pathway toward landscape coherence: the case of the Finger Lakes region,New York,USA

This paper explores the role of so-called wine trails as planners and managers of viticultural landscapes, using the case of the Finger Lakes region in New York, USA. Using key informant interviews, it assesses the current capacity and the future potential of these non-governmental, fee-based ‘clubs’ to mediate between global markets and the local agricultural landscape in the absence of policy frameworks designed for this purpose. Though it finds little evidence of such mediation today, the paper argues that the structure and institutional position of wine trails, organizations whose members’ livelihoods depend substantially on long-term landscape coherence, position them to play a more assertive role in doing so in the future, particularly in places marked by lax planning regimes and scarce resources.     

Hypsometry of glaciated landscapes

Hypsometry (frequency distribution of elevations) is often used to characterize landscape morphology, traditionally in the context of the degree of ?uvial dissection. Recently, the hypsometry of glaciated regions has been used to infer how rates of glacial erosion compare with tectonic uplift rates. However, many factors other than tectonics can also exert a major in?uence on the hypsometry of a glaciated landscape, resulting in a wide variety of hypsometries. Using examples from the eastern Sierra Nevada, California, the western Sangre de Cristo Range, Colorado, and the Ben Ohau Range, New Zealand, we demonstrate that, all else being equal, the hypsometries of neighbouring basins can indicate the relative degree of glacial modi?cation in each. A selection of drainage basins from the Rocky Mountains shows that the position of the equilibrium line altitude (ELA) within the drainage basin relief is a dominant variable in determining the hypsometry of a glaciated basin. This is a non‐linear effect: once the ELA falls to some critical level, the glaciers scour deeply below the ELA, causing a noticeably different hypsometry. The hypsometry of an arbitrary region encompassing many drainage basins can disguise the variation present in the hypsometries, and thus landforms, of the individual basins. Unique local circumstances, such as the presence of a mountain ice?eld (Waiho Basin, Southern Alps), substantial hanging valleys (Avalanche Creek, Glacier National Park), a narrow outlet canyon (Sawmill Creek, Sierra Nevada), and isolated geologic structures (Baker Creek, Sierra Nevada), can have a major impact on the hypsometry of an individual basin. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

(Re)thinking the dynamics between healthcare and place: therapeutic geographies in treatment and care practices

Although the concept of therapeutic landscapes has assisted health geographers to explore the intimate connections between well-being and place, arguably, after a decade of applications, the common interpretations and assumptions of commentators should be reviewed. Based on theoretical insights from psychoanalytic geographies and geographies of nursing, this paper makes two observations. First, that landscape has been almost exclusively interpreted in a physical sense with co-presence being a necessary condition. In turn, this assumption has led to the neglect of non-physical (imagined) places. Second, that therapeutic effects have been interpreted as experiences attained outside of clinical practices. Hence, healthcare workers and their direct treatments and care have also been neglected. To explore these omissions together, an interview survey of complementary therapists investigates the many ways in which imagined places are constructed and manipulated in therapy sessions. Arguably, beyond this example, extending the therapeutic landscape concept to both physical and non-physical features of treatments could provide fresh insights into the dynamics between healthcare and place. In disciplinary terms, the benefits are twofold. Whilst it could help develop a critical tradition in health geography, perhaps ironically, it could also provide a stronger disciplinary connection between qualitative health geography, various forms of medicine and their research traditions.     

中、日都市旅游街区书法景观空间分异及其文化认同比较研究

以中国和日本两国都市旅游街区的商店招牌为研究对象,以北京琉璃厂、东京浅草寺作为传统旅游街区,以北京王府井、东京新宿作为更新型旅游街区,以南京新街口、东京银座作为都市现代商贸旅游街区,设计了特定的书法景观指数从不同空间尺度探讨了两国书法景观空间分异特征及文化认同的异同。结果表明：全球化背景下中、日两国对书法文化仍然存在的较强文化认同,书法景观作为一种文化符号,标识了城市内部象征空间的形成,表征着全球化背景下的社会与文化过程。虽然两国文字、民俗和书法传统的差异性导致两国在书法艺术的认同角度和形式上的差异,但两国书法景观在整体上具有城市空间分异规律和文化认同的一致性：在全球化的背景下,现代旅游街区的书法景观较之传统旅游街区已经弱化;书法景观在不同类型业态之间的差异则揭示了这种空间分异的形成机制。     

黄河三角洲地质遗迹景观特征与发展趋势

黄河三角洲国家级地质遗迹保护区总面积15.3万hm2,与国内外其他河流三角洲沉积相比,黄河三角洲的沉积环境和沉积模式有其独特之处,主要是黄河三角洲平原在发展演化过程中形成的各种河流沉积地貌景观、微地貌景观和河口地貌景观。研究和保护这些地质地貌遗迹,对了解黄河三角洲的演化过程、发展趋势以及提出合理的保护措施有重要意义。     

Extreme rainfall and its impact on cultivated landscapes with particular reference to Britain

Extreme rainfall events (>50 mm day^?1) falling on cultivated land which is relatively bare of vegetation cover, typically give rise to networks of rills and gullies with ephemeral gullies in depressions and valley bottoms. Farming practices such as the removal of field boundaries, the presence of wheelings and rolled surfaces encourage runoff. The coincidence of vulnerable crops such as maize, potatoes and sugar beet with erodible soils and sloping sites may lead to high rates of erosion associated with single events or wet seasons. Not all extreme rainfall events lead to runoff and erosion, this depends on timing with respect to the growing crop. Rates of erosion associated with extreme events may be high but when placed in a long‐term temporal context, they tend to be quite low. Extreme events frequently lead to off‐site impacts most notably muddy flooding of properties and the pollution of watercourses. Landscapes may be protected from extreme events by standard soil conservation techniques; off‐site impacts may similarly be alleviated by flood‐protection measures. In both cases, the challenge is to put in place adequate economic incentives, social pressures and governmental policy frameworks to incentivise effective action. Predicted rainfall changes in the future include wetter winters and increases in rain per rain‐day. In this case, the risk of erosion on cultivated land will increase. However, erosion mitigation strategies should still address the issue of the incidence of high‐risk crops on vulnerable sites. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Geomorphological development of the eastern margin of the Australian Craton

The denudation chronologies of five uplands of contrasting geological structure located at the eastern margin of the Australian Craton are examined. They are the Isa Highlands, MacDonnell Ranges and Flinders Ranges (fold mountains, orogenic setting); the Arcoona Plateau (dissected plateau, platform setting); and the Gawler Ranges (massif of old silicic volcanics, cratonic setting). In each, surfaces of Mesozoic age, many of them exhumed and of pre-Cretaceous age, are preserved. Each also appears to have been uplifted recurrently. Each was either overwhelmed or bordered by the Early Cretaceous (Neocomian-Aptian) sea. Tectonism associated with the break-up of Gondwana probably allowed this important marine transgression. Thereafter, thalassostatic and erosional/depositional isostatic responses have maintained the uplands as uplands and the intervening basins as negative topographic and structural units; the pattern of topography has been constant for the last 60–100 Ma.     

From Forests and Fields to Coffee and Back Again: Historic Transformations of a Traditional Coffee Agroecosystem in Oaxaca,Mexico

Studies of coffee agroecosystems have focused on their role in providing habitat for biodiversity across a range of management intensities. These studies have not taken into account the temporal and spatial transformations in coffee landscapes and their impacts on structural heterogeneity and biodiversity, nor systematically linked these transformations to farmer management responses to price and policy shocks. We utilize a coupled natural–human system framework to examine the historical transformations of the coffee landscape in a matrix of community-protected forests in a coffee-growing community in Oaxaca, Mexico, and study how those transformations impact tree biodiversity across a range of management options, including formerly certified organic and conventional coffee, abandonment, and conversion. The coffee landscape has historically transitioned from forests and fields (1950s–1960s) to one dominated by coffee (1970s–1980s) to a richly mosaic and biodiverse landscape (1990–2010) resulting from 43% recent abandonment and conversion of coffee back to forest and fields.