Living with the past: Uses of history for understanding landscape change and degradation

✍ Scribed by R. J. Wasson

• Book ID: 102927348
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1994
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 791 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1085-3278
• DOI: 10.1002/ldr.3400050205

✦ Synopsis

The analysis of land degradation is almost always ahistorical, and as a consequence is of diminished value. Global change, as it has come to be known, is thought of as a climatic phenomenon of this and the next century, but has actually been happening as a consequence of land use and climate variation for centuries. Land and water degradation are probably the most obvious manifestations of this global change. The various uses of historical analyses are exemplified in this paper to show their value as contextual explanations, possible analogues of future conditions, a library of experiments already performed, and a narrative of change.