Mapping Human and Natural Systems


Book Description

Mapping Human and Natural Systems covers our increasingly digital world - internet communications, cloud computing, etc., and how our ability to quickly and visually communicate is becoming increasingly important. The book provides the reader with a ready reference to learn about map creation and interpretation and to help them better interact with, and construct, maps. There are several software systems available that focus on maps and mapping, but no single resource that covers the fundamentals of mapping. This book fills that need. - Presents unique reflections, diversions, inspections and translations to encourage critical thinking skills - Includes a companion site to enhance the reflections, diversions, inspections and translations with additional resources - Provides examples and discussions from seasoned natural resource professionals with over 80 years of combined professional experience




Mapping Ecosystem Services


Book Description

"The new book Mapping Ecosystem Services provides a comprehensive collection of theories, methods and practical applications of ecosystem services (ES) mapping, for the first time bringing together valuable knowledge and techniques from leading international experts in the field." (www.eurekalert.org).




Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome


Book Description

There is growing enthusiasm in the scientific community about the prospect of mapping and sequencing the human genome, a monumental project that will have far-reaching consequences for medicine, biology, technology, and other fields. But how will such an effort be organized and funded? How will we develop the new technologies that are needed? What new legal, social, and ethical questions will be raised? Mapping and Sequencing the Human Genome is a blueprint for this proposed project. The authors offer a highly readable explanation of the technical aspects of genetic mapping and sequencing, and they recommend specific interim and long-range research goals, organizational strategies, and funding levels. They also outline some of the legal and social questions that might arise and urge their early consideration by policymakers.




Geographic Information System Skills for Foresters and Natural Resource Managers


Book Description

Geographic Information System Skills for Foresters and Natural Resource Managers provides a resource for developing knowledge and skills concerning GIS as it applies to forestry and natural resource management. This book helps readers understand how GIS can effectively be used by professional foresters and land managers to conduct spatial analyses or address management decisions. Through topics presented, readers will improve their ability to understand GIS data sources, identify GIS data types and quality, perform common spatial analysis processes, create GIS data, produce maps, and ultimately develop the skills necessary to use GIS analysis to answer real-world questions. This book will be of great benefit to GIS users looking to directly apply techniques to real-world data or foresters and natural resource scientists who use GIS in their research. - Presents unique reflections, diversions, inspections and translations within the text to encourage readers' critical thinking skills - Includes a companion website to enhance the reflections, diversions, inspections and translations with additional resources - Designed with examples, discussions and case studies from seasoned natural resource professionals with decades of combined professional experience




The Map and the Territory


Book Description

Like all of us, though few so visibly, Alan Greenspan was forced by the financial crisis of 2008 to question some fundamental assumptions about risk management and economic forecasting. No one with any meaningful role in economic decision making in the world saw beforehand the storm for what it was. How had our models so utterly failed us? To answer this question, Alan Greenspan embarked on a rigorous and far-reaching multiyear examination of how Homo economicus predicts the economic future, and how it can predict it better. Economic risk is a fact of life in every realm, from home to business to government at all levels. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, we make wagers on the future virtually every day, one way or another. Very often, however, we’re steering by out-of-date maps, when we’re not driven by factors entirely beyond our conscious control. The Map and the Territory is nothing less than an effort to update our forecasting conceptual grid. It integrates the history of economic prediction, the new work of behavioral economists, and the fruits of the author’s own remarkable career to offer a thrillingly lucid and empirically based grounding in what we can know about economic forecasting and what we can’t.The book explores how culture is and isn't destiny and probes what we can predict about the world's biggest looming challenges, from debt and the reform of the welfare state to natural disasters in an age of global warming. No map is the territory, but Greenspan’s approach, grounded in his trademark rigor, wisdom, and unprecedented context, ensures that this particular map will assist in safe journeys down many different roads, traveled by individuals, businesses, and the state.




Mapping Nature across the Americas


Book Description

Maps are inherently unnatural. Projecting three-dimensional realities onto two-dimensional surfaces, they are abstractions that capture someone’s idea of what matters within a particular place; they require selections and omissions. These very characteristics, however, give maps their importance for understanding how humans have interacted with the natural world, and give historical maps, especially, the power to provide rich insights into the relationship between humans and nature over time. That is just what is achieved in Mapping Nature across the Americas. Illustrated throughout, the essays in this book argue for greater analysis of historical maps in the field of environmental history, and for greater attention within the field of the history of cartography to the cultural constructions of nature contained within maps. This volume thus provides the first in-depth and interdisciplinary investigation of the relationship between maps and environmental knowledge in the Americas—including, for example, stories of indigenous cartography in Mexico, the allegorical presence of palm trees in maps of Argentina, the systemic mapping of US forests, and the scientific platting of Canada’s remote lands.




Advances in Natural, Human-Made, and Coupled Human-Natural Systems Research


Book Description

This book is a unique collection of advanced research on natural, human-made, and coupled human–natural systems. The contributors analyze the current state of knowledge, address methodological challenges, and explore engaging cases. The chapters demonstrate the balanced disciplinary strength and discuss interdisciplinary perspectives. The authors undertake a holistic and spatially integrative analysis to understand the sustainability of environmental, economic, and social systems, emphasizing the coupled nature of such systems. In particular, the chapters explore biodiversity conservation and natural resources, the sustainability of natural and human-altered ecosystems, sustainability–vulnerability issues in coupled human–natural systems, mechanisms to foster sustainable environmental practices, eventually accumulating sustainability research and practice in various fields. More than that, the challenges of educational and economic systems are studied closely. The authors rely on unique data, develop regional and local knowledge, and explore global trends at local scales. A separate focus is devoted to human health and well-being. The book has seven sections: (1) Advances in Natural and Coupled Human–Natural Systems Research; (2) Economic Systems in the Age of Digital Changes and Unstable Environments; (3) Sustainable Social Systems, Migration Flows, and Social Cohesion; (4) Taking Action for Greater Security and Effective Partnerships for Sustainable Development; (5) Systemic Challenges and Changes in Education Systems in Russia and Around the Globe; (6) Advances in Cultural Traditions and Innovation, Development Barriers, and Social Stability; (7) Human Health and Well-being: Taking Action for Sustainable Development. Written by scholars and practitioners from multiple fields of knowledge, the book is designed for a broader audience interested in the following research areas: systems research and thinking, sustainability research and thinking, system dynamics, management of complexity, decision analysis, organization theory, governance, natural resources, environmental studies, economic development, social policies, cleaner production, innovation, cultural studies, and sustainable practices.




Mapping Environmental Sustainability


Book Description

Environmental sustainability involves the interaction of a number of complex adaptive systems that rely on an understanding of human relationships and perspectives that are widely contested. Mapping Environmental Sustainability explains how visual mapping techniques, based on systems concepts and theories, can be used to facilitate, explore, and capture the different understandings of the relationships, perspectives, and boundaries involved in environmental sustainability to obtain a more complete comprehension of the concept and develop plans for action. Built on practical case studies that are used in conjunction with clear explanations of visual mapping techniques and theories, the book offers a practical guide for people working in or studying the field.




Building Resilience of Human-Natural Systems of Pastoralism in the Developing World


Book Description

This edited volume summarizes information about the situational context, threats, problems, challenges and solutions for sustainable pastoralism at a global scale. The book has four goals. The first goal is to summarize the information about the history, distribution and patterns of pastoralism and to identify the importance of pastoralism from social, economic and environmental perspectives. The results of an empirical investigation of the environmental and socio-economic implications of pastoralism in representative pastoral regions in the world are also incorporated. The second goal is to argue that breaking coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism leads to degradation of pastoral ecosystems and to create an analysis framework to assess the vulnerability of worldwide pastoralism. Our analysis framework provides approaches to help comprehensively understand the transitions and the impacts of human-natural systems in the pastoral regions in the world. The third goal is to identify the successful models in promoting coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism, and to learn lessons of breaking coupled human-cultural pastoralism systems through examining the representative cases in regions including Central Asia, Southern and Eastern Asia, Northern and Eastern Africa, the European Alps and South America. The fourth goal is to identify the strategies to build the resilience of the coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism worldwide. We hope that our book can facilitate the further examination of sustainable development of coupled human-natural systems of pastoralism by providing the summaries of existing data and information related to the pastoralism development, and by offering a framework for better understanding and analysis of their social, economic and environmental implications.




Geoenvironmental Mapping: Methods,Theory and Practice


Book Description

This text illustrates the range of environmental geoscience mapping presently carried out around the world. Specialists in several countries have contributed a number of subdisciplinary and thematic topics including volcanic hazards, landslides, dolines, tsunamis, radon potential, medical geology, rainfall erosion, engineering geology, borehole stratigraphy, lake sediment geochemistry, aggregate resources and remote sensing. The collection, analysis and interpretation of data by geologists, geographers and engineers typically involves the presentation of information in map form, which can range from black/white to colour, 2-D to 3-D and paper copy to digital format illustrations. This volume reaffirms the global need for mapping geoscientific data.