Download or read book Southern African Landscapes and Environmental Change written by Peter J. Holmes and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-07-04 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume provides a textbook and reference work on the physical and biotic landscapes of Southern Africa. It examines the links between these environments and the ways in which they have been, are and will likely be subject to change. It covers the geomorphology, soils, vegetation and land use across a range of landscapes, including mountains, coasts, savannah, drylands and wetlands, and identifies the impacts of current and potential climate change and other factors on these environments. The geographical focus is on the region defined by Namibia, South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Swaziland. Illustrated throughout in full colour, the book will serve as a reference volume for researchers and environmental professionals internationally, as well as a textbook for senior undergraduate and graduate-level students of geography, ecology and environmental studies in Southern Africa.
Download or read book Quaternary Environmental Change in Southern Africa written by Jasper Knight and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-23 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a benchmark study of southern African landscape evolution during the Quaternary, for researchers, professionals and policymakers.
Download or read book Landscapes and Landforms of South Africa written by Stefan Grab and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-03-05 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a beautifully illustrated overview of the most prominent landscapes of South Africa and the distinctive landforms associated with them. It describes the processes, origins and the environmental significance of those landscapes, including their relationships to human activity of the past and present. The sites described in this book include, amongst others, the Blyde River Canyon, Augrabies Falls, Kruger National Park, Kalahari desert landscapes, the Great Escarpment, Sterkfontein caves and karst system, Table Mountain, Cape winelands, coastal dunes, rocky coasts, Boer War battlefield sites, and Vredefort impact structure. Landscapes and Landforms of South Africa provides a new perspective on South Africa’s scenic landscapes by considering their diversity, long and short term histories, and importance for geoconservation and geotourism. This book will be relevant to those interested in the geology, physical geography and history of South Africa, climate change and landscape tourism.
Download or read book Cultural Landscapes and Environmental Change written by Lesley Head and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-25 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cultural landscapes are usually understood within physical geography as those transformed by human action. As human influence on the earth increases, advances in palaeocological reconstruction have also allowed for new interpretations of the evidence for the earliest human impacts on the environment. It is essential that such evidence is examined in the context of modern trends in social sciences and humanities. This stimulating new book argues that convergence of the two approaches can provide a more holistic understanding of long-term physical and human processes. Split into two major sections, this book attempts to bridge the gap between the sciences and humanities. The first section, provides an analysis of the methodological tools employed in examining processes of environmental change. Empirical research in the fields of palaecology and Quaternary studies is combined with the latest theoretical views of nature and landscape occurring in cultural geography, archaeology and anthropology. The author examines the way in which environmental management decisions are made. The book then moves on to discuss the relevance of this perspective to contemporary issues through a wide variety of international case studies, including World Heritage protection, landscape preservation, indigenous people and cultural tourism.
Download or read book Quaternary Environmental Change in Southern Africa written by Jasper Knight and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-23 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ongoing climate change necessitates advances in our understanding of the interrelationships between climate, landscape-shaping processes and human activity over long time periods, especially in areas that are already climatically stressed. This volume presents new ideas on macroscale landscape evolution; mountain, fluvial and aeolian processes; and environments in southern Africa, a key region in the story of human evolution during the last two million years. Interdisciplinary in scope, it brings together an international team of experts to synthesise the latest research and understanding of landscape-human relationships in this region. It incorporates results from the emerging fields of geoarchaeology and cultural landscapes and utilises the latest data and analytical techniques. A key reference for researchers studying hominid evolution, geoarchaeology and environmental change, it provides a benchmark study of southern African landscape evolution during the Quaternary. It will also appeal to professionals and policymakers with interests in future human-landscape evolution in southern Africa.
Download or read book Sustainability of Southern African Ecosystems under Global Change written by Graham P. von Maltitz and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 990 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Misreading the African Landscape written by James Fairhead and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-10-17 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intriguing 1996 study showing how Africans enrich their land, while scientists believe they damage it.
Download or read book The Geography of South Africa written by Jasper Knight and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-10-03 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited collection examines contemporary directions in geographical research on South Africa. It encompasses a cross section of selected themes of critical importance not only to the discipline of Geography in South Africa, but also of relevance to other areas of the Global South. All chapters are original contributions, providing a state of the art research baseline on key themes in physical, human and environmental geography, and in understanding the changing geographical landscapes of modern South Africa. These contributions set the scene for an understanding of the relationships between modern South Africa and the wider contemporary world, including issues of sustainable development and growth in the Global South.
Download or read book A Scientific Bibliography of the Drakensberg Maloti and Adjacent Lowlands written by Rodney Moffett and published by UJ Press. This book was released on 2021-04-19 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bibliography includes scientific articles on the Drakensberg, Maloti and Adjacent Lowlands published between 1808 and 2019. Although focussing on material appearing in accredited journals, there is such a wealth of information in the form of unpublished, yet traceable, reports, documents, presentations and dissertations, these are also included. The bibliography has two parts – a complete list arranged alphabetically, and the same references arranged in 33 different disciplines. These range from Palaeobotany with 17 entries, to Rock Art with 502 entries.
Download or read book Southern African Geomorphology written by Peter Holmes and published by UJ Press. This book was released on 2013-01-06 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book covers the geomorphology and landscape evolution of South Africa, focusing on arid landscapes, fluvial systems, karst, Quaternary landscapes, macro-scale geomorphic evolution, coastal geomorphology and applied geomorphology. It would appeal to postgraduate students in Physical Geography (Geomorphology) and Physical Geology and all academics in the earth sciences.
Download or read book Impact of Agriculture on Soil Degradation I written by Paulo Pereira and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-05-11 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first of two volumes that together provide a global overview of the impact of agriculture on soil degradation, tracing the most critical drivers like the use and abuse of agrochemicals, mechanization, overgrazing, irrigation, slash and burn agriculture, and the use of plastics. This book covers the main effects of agriculture practices on soil degradation in several countries from Africa, America, Asia, and Oceania, and it elucidates the impact of chemical agents on soil quality, namely, the use of fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, soil acidification and microplastics pollution. In these continents, a large number of the population depend on agriculture, which sets an enormous pressure on the ecosystems. Divided into 13 chapters, the book offers authoritative contributions about the fundamental soil degradation problems in countries such as Argentina, Australia, Peru and Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, India, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, South Africa, the United States of America. As soil degradation issues are often linked with biodiversity loss and poverty, readers will also find in this book an important discussion of the different social, economic, political, and environmental aspects contributing to soil quality and sustainable management. Given the breadth and depth of its coverage, the book offers an invaluable source of information for researchers, students, environmental managers and policymakers alike.
Download or read book Environmental Change and African Societies written by Ingo Haltermann and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The volume Environmental Change and African Societies contributes to current debates on global climate change from the perspectives of the social sciences and the humanities. It charts past and present environmental change in different African settings and also discusses policies and scenarios for the future. The first section, "Ideas", enquires into local perceptions of the environment, followed by contributions on historical cases of environmental change and state regulation. The section "Present" addresses decision-making and agenda-setting processes related to current representations and/or predicted effects of climate change. The section "Prospects" is concerned with contemporary African megatrends. The authors move across different scales of investigation, from locally-grounded ethnographic analyses to discussions on continental trends and international policy. Contributors are: Daniel Callo-Concha, Joy Clancy, Manfred Denich, Sara de Wit, Ton Dietz, Irit Eguavoen, Ben Fanstone, Ingo Haltermann, Laura Jeffrey, Emmanuel Kreike, Vimbai Kwashirai, James C. McCann, Bertrand F. Nero, Jonas Ø. Nielsen, Erick G. Tambo, Julia Tischler.
Download or read book The Long Term Perspective of Human Impact on Landscape for Environmental Change and Sustainability written by Anna Maria Mercuri and published by MDPI. This book was released on 2019-11-19 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The research studies included in this Special Issue highlight the fundamental contribution of the knowledge of environmental history to conscious and efficient environment conservation and management. The long-term perspective of the dynamics that govern the human–climate ecosystem is becoming one of the main focuses of interest in biological and earth system sciences. Multidisciplinary bio-geo-archaeo investigations into the underlying processes of human impact on the landscape are crucial to envisage possible future scenarios of biosphere responses to global warming and biodiversity losses. This Special Issue seeks to engage an interdisciplinary dialog on the dynamic interactions between nature and society, focusing on long-term environmental data as an essential tool for better-informed landscape management decisions to achieve an equilibrium between conservation and sustainable resource exploitation.
Download or read book Biodiversity Conservation and Environmental Change written by Lindsey Gillson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses how a knowledge of long-term change in ecosystems can inform and influence their conservation, integrating perspectives from archaeology, environmental history and palaeoecology.
Download or read book Livelihood and Landscape Change in Africa Future Trajectories for Improved Well Being under a Changing Climate written by Sheona Shackleton and published by MDPI. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is based on a Special Issue of the journal LAND that draws together a collection of 11 diverse articles at the nexus of climate change, landscapes, and livelihoods in rural Africa; all explore the links between livelihood and landscape change, including shifts in farming practices and natural resource use and management. The articles, which are all place-based case studies across nine African countries, cover three not necessarily mutually exclusive thematic areas, namely: smallholder farming livelihoods under new climate risk (five articles); long-term dynamics of livelihoods and landscape change and future trajectories (two articles); and natural resource management and governance under a changing climate, spanning forests, woodlands, and rangelands (four articles). The commonalities, key messages, and research gaps across the 11 articles are presented in a synthesis article. All the case studies pointed to the need for an integrated and in-depth understanding of the multiple drivers of landscape and livelihood change and how these interact with local histories, knowledge systems, cultures, complexities, and lived realities. Moreover, where there are interventions (such as new governance systems, REDD+ or climate smart agriculture), it is critical to interrogate what is required to ensure a fair and equitable distribution of emerging benefits.
Download or read book Landscapes and Landforms of Botswana written by Frank D. Eckardt and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume contains 22 chapters introducing a wide range of semi-arid and geologic landscapes. Botswana, a thinly populated nation, the size of France, is a Southern African keystone country at the heart of the Kalahari, sharing some of the major sub-continental drainage basins such as the Limpopo, Zambezi, Orange, and Okavango with its neighbouring countries. The extensive Kalahari Sand surface has been sculptured by numerous past processes which have produced subtle but regional landforms consisting of extensive dunes and shorelines. Incipient rifting has created the dynamic Okavango and Makgadikgadi fan-basin systems which produces iconic wetlands with a world heritage status. Geological outcrops in particular to the east expose highly denuded basement lithologies which produces numerous inselbergs that are home to a rich archaeological heritage. The book also examines the geomorphology of mineral and water resources which sustain the economy and population and also features dedicated chapters that cover diamondiferous kimberlites, caves, pans, dams, duricrusts and wildlife. Chapter 6 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Download or read book Handbook of Landscape Archaeology written by Bruno David and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-03 with total page 1307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past three decades, “landscape” has become an umbrella term to describe many different strands of archaeology. From the processualist study of settlement patterns to the phenomenologist’s experience of the natural world, from human impact on past environments to the environment’s impact on human thought, action, and interaction, the term has been used. In this volume, for the first time, over 80 archaeologists from three continents attempt a comprehensive definition of the ideas and practices of landscape archaeology, covering the theoretical and the practical, the research and conservation, and encasing the term in a global framework. As a basic reference volume for landscape archaeology, this volume will be the benchmark for decades to come. All royalties on this Handbook are donated to the World Archaeological Congress.
