Encyclopedia of Environmental Change
Encyclopedias
Publication Year: 2014
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781446247501
Subject: Environmental Sciences (general), Environmental Technology, Policy & Management
- Entries A-Z
- Subject Index
-
- A
- B
- C
- D
- E
- F
- G
- H
- I
- J
- K
- L
- M
- N
- O
- P
- Q
- R
- S
- T
- U
- V
- W
- X
- Y
- Z
-
173998- Loading...
-
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 by SAGE Publications Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
FOR INFORMATION:
SAGE Publications Ltd.
1 Oliver's Yard
55 City Road
London, EC1Y 1SP
United Kingdom
SAGE Publications, Inc.
2455 Teller Road
Thousand Oaks, California 91320
United States of America
SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd.
B 1/I 1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area
Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044
India
SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte. Ltd.
3 Church Street
#10-04 Samsung Hub
Singapore 049483
Publisher: Delia Martinez Alfonso
Acquisitions Editor: Robert Rojek
Editorial Assistant: Colette Wilson
Developmental Editor: Judi Burger
Production Editor: Tracy Buyan
Copy Editor: QuADS Prepress (P) Ltd.
Typesetter: Hurix Systems (P) Ltd.
Proofreaders: Lawrence W. Baker, Kate Peterson, Kristin Bergstad
Indexer: Julie Grayson
Cover Designer: Wendy Scott
Marketing Manager: Teri Williams
Printed in the United Kingdom.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Encyclopedia of environmental change / John A. Matthews, Swansea University, general editor.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4462-4711-2 (cloth)
1. Global environmental change—Encyclopedias. I. Matthews, John A. (John Anthony), 1947–
GE149.E442 2014
363.703—dc23 2013017218
13 14 15 16 17 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Editorial Board
Editor-in-ChiefJohn A. Matthews Swansea University
Editorial BoardChristopher J. Barrow Swansea University
Christopher J. Caseldine University of Exeter
John L. Innes University of British Columbia
Geraint Owen Swansea University
Richard A. Shakesby Swansea University
Doreen S. Boyd Nottingham University
Katherine J. Ficken Swansea University
Stephen Nortcliff University of Reading
Jennifer Pike Cardiff University
Rory P.D. Walsh Swansea University
Dennis A. Wheeler University of Sunderland
List of Entries
About the Editor-in-Chief
John A. Matthews is Emeritus Professor of Physical Geography at Swansea University, Wales, UK, where he was also Director of the Swansea Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory. After gaining a BSc and a PhD in Geography from King’s College, University of London, he worked at the Universities of Edinburgh and Cardiff before moving to Swansea in 1994. His main research interests are in Holocene environmental change (especially reconstructing glacier and climatic variations and their effects on the landscape), dating techniques, glacial and periglacial geomorphology, the geo-ecology of glacier forelands and the nature, history and philosophy of geography. In pursuit of these studies, he has led over 40 Jotunheimen Research Expeditions to southern Norway for which he received the Ness Award of the Royal Geographical Society in 1988 and an invitation to a State Banquet at Buckingham Palace in 2005 to meet the King and Queen of Norway and celebrate the 100th anniversary of Norwegian independence. He has also carried out research in Finnish Lapland, on Mount Kenya, in the Austrian Alps and in the Brecon Beacons, Wales, and has been a Visiting Landsdowne Scholar at the University of Victoria, Canada. He received research funding from, amongst other sources, the UK Natural Environmental Research Council, Leverhulme Trust, European Science Foundation, National Geographic Society (USA) and Royal Geographical Society. He has supervised 22 successful PhD research students. His publications include over 150 contributions in scientific journals and his 9 books include Quantitative and Statistical Approaches to Geography (Pergamon Press, 1982); The Ecology of Recently Deglaciated Terrain: A Geoecological Approach to Glacier Forelands and Primary Succession (Cambridge University Press, 1992); Solifluction and Climatic Variation During the Holocene (Gustav Fischer, 1993); Unifying Geography: Common Heritage, Shared Future (Routledge, 2004); Geography: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2008); and The SAGE Handbook of Environmental Change, 2 volumes (Sage, 2012). He has been the Editor of The Holocene (the interdisciplinary journal focusing on recent environmental change) since its foundation in 1991.
About the Editorial Board
Christopher J. Barrow is now an Honorary Associate of Swansea University having retired as Reader in the Department of Geography in 2011. After graduating with a BSc from Hull University he worked for four years as a Contract Scientific Officer and palynologist with the British Antarctic Survey in South Georgia, the Falkland Islands and the United Kingdom. He was appointed to a two-year Lectureship in Biogeography at Hull University while completing his PhD in Geological Sciences at Birmingham University. This was followed, in 1978, by his appointment as a Lecturer in Natural Resources Management in the Centre for Development Studies at Swansea University, where he gained a Senior Lectureship and then a Readership. His research specialisms include land degradation, environmental management, sustainable resource use in tropical highlands, environment and social impact assessment and integrated river-basin management, and he has undertaken research and consultancy in Malaysia, Brazil and Morocco as well as the United Kingdom. Since the early 1980s, he has authored 10 books, including Water Resources and Agricultural Development (Longman, 1987); Land Degradation (Cambridge University Press, 1994); Developing the Environment: Problems and Management (Longman, 1995); Environmental and Social Impact Assessment: An Introduction (Hodder-Arnold, 1997); Alternative Irrigation: The Promise of Runoff Agriculture (Routledge, 1999); Environmental Change and Human Development (Arnold, 2003); and Environmental Management for Sustainable Development (Routledge, 2006). He has been Editor-in-Chief of the Wiley-Blackwell journal Land Degradation and Development since he founded the journal in 1989.
Doreen S. Boyd received a BSc degree in geography from the University of Wales, Swansea, in 1992 and a PhD degree from the University of Southampton in 1996. She is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Geography, University of Nottingham, having held Lectureships at Manchester, Kingston and Bournemouth Universities, UK. Between 2004 and 2006, she held the position of Senior Research Leader in Research and Innovation at the Ordnance Survey, Southampton. Her main research interests are in the remote sensing of terrestrial ecosystems, including tropical rainforests, temperate peatlands, boreal forests and mountain shrublands, in places across the range in latitude and longitude. Both passive and active systems are used for investigation, with a particular focus on novel and cutting-edge systems and processing approaches. She has numerous specialist publications in these fields. Her research work has attracted funding from learned societies and research councils in the United Kingdom and Europe, as well as from international space agencies. She serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Maps and the UK Natural Environment Research Council Airborne Research and Survey Facility Steering Committee.
Christopher J. Caseldine is Professor of Quaternary Environmental Change at the University of Exeter. He gained an MA and a PhD from the University of St Andrews and joined the Geography Department at the University of Exeter in 1976, where he became Head of Department and Head of the School of Geography, Archaeology and Earth Resources. He is currently based at the Tremough Campus of the University, in Cornwall. Between 2005 and 2010 he was Chief Editor of the Journal of Quaternary Science. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Munich and Innsbruck. His main interests relate to Late Quaternary environmental change in northwest Europe, where he has carried out research in a number of areas including Iceland, southern Norway, northwest Scotland, Ireland and southwest England. His research has involved studying both natural environmental change, principally climatic change, and the influence of past human communities on the landscape, often in collaboration with archaeologists. He has published over 120 contributions in scientific journals and books and edited two books on environmental change in Iceland: Environmental Change in Iceland: Past and Present (Kluwer Academic, 1991); and Iceland: Modern Processes and Past Environments (Elsevier, 2005). His most recent publication has been a collaboration with a poet and students from the Tremough campus documenting a field class to Iceland titled 6 Days in Iceland (Dropstone Press, 2012).
Katherine J. Ficken is Research Laboratory Manager and part-time tutor in the Department of Geography at Swansea University. After gaining a BSc in Geology at University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and an MSc and PhD in Organic Geochemistry from Newcastle University, she worked at the Royal Dutch Institute for Sea Research and Bristol University before moving to Swansea in 1999. Her main research interests focus on palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimate reconstruction, using lipid and isotope stratigraphy, a specialist field in which she has numerous publications. The majority of her work is multidisciplinary, comparing results from molecular isotope analysis with those from pollen, diatom, grass cuticle and sedimentary data. She is primarily interested in lacustrine environments but also has considerable experience in lipid geochemistry and compound-specific isotope analyses of peat bogs, marine environments, geological samples and modern vegetation. Currently, she is part of the WISE 2 Network, a European Union–funded collaboration between the Universities of Swansea, Aberystwyth and Bangor that allows businesses instant access to the wealth of knowledge, research and facilities contained within these institutions.
John L. Innes received both his Bachelor’s and PhD degrees in Geography from the University of Cambridge. After working as a Natural Environment Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at University College Cardiff, he joined the UK Forestry Commission Research Division, and has worked in the field of forestry ever since. In 1992, he joined the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research. There, he was responsible for developing a program to monitor forest ecosystem processes under anthropogenic stresses. In 1999, he was appointed as Forest Renewal BC Chair of Forest Management at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and in 2010, he assumed the position of Dean of the Faculty of Forestry. He holds an Honorary Professorial Fellowship at the University of Melbourne and adjunct professorial positions at three Chinese universities. He has worked on a variety of subjects related to forest management and climate change, and his recent focus has been on the ways that forests, foresters and forest-dependent communities react to externally driven change. As such, he works at the borderline between natural and social sciences and is actively involved in research projects in British Columbia, Yukon Territory, Australia, South Africa, India, Peru and China. He is also co-ordinator of the Task Force on ‘Resources for the Future’ of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, Associate Editor of the Journal of Environmental Management and Environmental Conservation and sits on the Editorial Advisory Board of a number of other journals. He has published numerous papers and his books include Biomass Burning and Its Inter-Relationships With the Climate System (Springer, 2000), Forest Dynamics in Heavily Polluted Regions (CABI Publishing, 2000), Ozone and Broad-Leaved Species: A Guide to the Identification of Ozone-Induced Foliar Injury (Haupt, 2001) and Sustainable Forest Management: From Principles to Practice (Routledge, in press).
Stephen Nortcliff is Emeritus Professor of Soil Science at the University of Reading who has researched and taught across a range of soil and soil-related topics with a strong emphasis on soils and soil management in the tropics and most recently the use of waste-derived organic materials as soil amendments. He gained a BA in Geography from the University of Bristol and a PhD from the University of East Anglia. He was a Lecturer in the Geography Department at Kings College London, before moving to the Department of Soil Science at Reading. He was Head of Department in Soil Science on a number of occasions and later became Head of the School of Human and Environmental Sciences (Archaeology, Geography and Soil Science). In addition, he is Adjunct Professor of Soil Science at Clemson University, USA, and from 2002 to 2010 was Secretary General of the International Union of Soil Sciences representing some 50,000 soil scientists globally. His work in the tropics has involved research principally in Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Tanzania, the Philippines and Thailand. Research on organic soil amendments has included the use of plant residues, composts, sewage sludge and anaerobic digestates. In recent years, he has been actively involved in the development in soil protection strategies for England and Europe and from 2002 to 2006 was Chair of the European Commission’s Working Group on Soil Organic Matter for Soil Protection. He has published well over 100 publications in scientific journals and books and, with Peter Gregory, has edited Soil Conditions and Plant Growth, 12th edition (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013).
Geraint Owen is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography at Swansea University. He gained his BSc in Geological Sciences at Leeds University and his PhD in sedimentology at the University of Reading before joining the Department of Geology at Swansea University as a lecturer in 1984 and the Department of Geography in 1990. He received a Distinguished Teaching Award from Swansea University in 2008. His main research interest is the origin of soft-sediment deformation structures in sands and sandstones, which has included shaking-table experimental work and fieldwork in the United Kingdom, Italy and the United States. Additional research interests include Holocene environmental change, geomorphology and sedimentology in Jotunheimen, southern Norway, including field studies on physical and chemical weathering, avalanche-impact landforms and alluvial and colluvial fans. He undertakes extensive outreach activities including lectures and field trips for interested public groups. He is a past Secretary and Chairperson of the Earth Science Teachers’ Association and is active in the Geologists’ Association South Wales Group, of which he is an Honorary Member and President from 2012 to 2014.
Jennifer Pike is a Senior Lecturer in Earth and Ocean Sciences at Cardiff University. She gained her first degree in Geology from the University of Birmingham followed by a PhD from the School of Ocean and Earth Sciences, University of Southampton. Her research focuses on understanding seasonal-scale changes in oceanic environments through geological time by using a combination of sedimentology, palaeoecology and geochemistry. Her recent research projects include using seasonal changes in fossil marine diatom assemblages to investigate Holocene ice-ocean-climate interactions around the Antarctic continental margin and also using the oxygen isotope ratios recorded in the silica skeletons of marine diatoms to investigate the Holocene relationship between low latitude climate patterns and glacial discharge along the west Antarctic Peninsula. Although concentrating on the high southern latitudes at present, she has been involved in research projects that range from the Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea and the Gulf of California. Before taking up her current lecturing position at Cardiff University, she held a UK Ocean Drilling Program Postdoctoral Fellowship at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. Her publications include research articles, review articles and book chapters, and she is currently on the Editorial Board of the open-access journal ISRN Oceanography and is a Scientific Advisor to Revue de Micropaléontologie.
Richard A. Shakesby is a Reader in the Department of Geography at Swansea University. After gaining a BA in Geography from Portsmouth Polytechnic and a PhD in glacial geomorphology from Edinburgh University, he worked at Hereford College of Education before moving to Swansea in 1978. His interests range from glacial and periglacial geomorphology and Quaternary environmental change to human impact on landforms and geomorphological processes with a particular emphasis on the causes and consequences of soil erosion. He has served as a Council Member of the European Society for Soil Conservation and as an Executive Member of the Quaternary Research Association. He has been a Visiting Lecturer at Khartoum and Zimbabwe Universities and a principal investigator on four European Union–funded projects since 1988 concerned with land degradation and soil conservation issues in Portugal. These collaborative projects have considered the soil erosion impacts of wildfire, possible ways of mitigating post-wildfire erosion, assessment of the possible soil conservational benefits of prescribed fire as a wildfire limitation measure and identification of suitable strategies for combating desertification. He has also conducted research in the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Sudan, Zimbabwe and Australia, which has been funded from various sources including the British Council, the UK Natural Environmental Research Council and the Quaternary Research Association. He is the author of over 90 published contributions in scientific journals and books.
Rory P.D. Walsh is a Professor in Physical Geography at Swansea University and, since 2000, has been the Research Co-ordinator of the Royal Society South-East Asia Rain Forest Research Programme, based at Danum Valley in Sabah (Malaysian Borneo), where he has been researching since 1990. After gaining an MA and a PhD in Geography at St John’s College, Cambridge, he worked for a year as Temporary Lecturer in Geography at Durham University before moving to a permanent lectureship at Swansea, where he was Head of Department from 2005 to 2009. His research interests lie in the fields of hydrology and geomorphology, particularly of the tropics and Mediterranean. His main research foci have included drainage networks and hydrogeomorphological processes in the humid tropics; the use of sediment finger-printing and dating techniques to reconstruct erosional history; recent and historical changes in rainfall, tropical cyclones and droughts in the tropics and their hydrological, geomorphological and ecological impacts; the influence of forest fires and land management on Mediterranean hydrology (notably soil-water repellency) and soil erosion; and acid waters and heavy metal river pollution problems in the United Kingdom. In pursuit of these interests, he has carried out field research in the Caribbean, Sudan, Sarawak and Sabah, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Portugal. He was a member of the Royal Geographical Society Expedition to Mulu (Sarawak) in 1977–1978, a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Khartoum on several occasions over the period 1982–1990 and a Visiting Scholar at the University of Würzburg in 1990. His sources of research funding include major grants from the Natural Environment Research Council, the Royal Society, the European Union, Shell, HSBC, the Sime Darby Foundation and the Earthwatch Institute. He received the Back Award from the Royal Geographical Society in 1996 for contributions to tropical hydrology and geomorphology. He has been the supervisor of 22 successful PhD students. His publications include over 100 contributions to scientific journals and books, including major contributions to The Tropical Rain Forest (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and Geomorphology and Global Environmental Change (Cambridge University Press, 2009). He was co-editor of a Special Issue in 2011 of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B on The future of tropical rainforests in a changing climate and landscape.
Dennis A. Wheeler is Reader in Geography at the University of Sunderland. He gained his BSc and PhD degrees from the University of Hull before moving on to the University of Keele. He has been at Sunderland since 1980 during which time he has developed an interest in historical and regional climatology and, in particular, in the use of old documents, especially Royal Navy ships’ logbooks, from as far back as the late seventeenth century to reconstruct synoptic-scale circulation patterns and past climates. He also investigates the influence of weather on naval battles in the age of sail and has written extensively on the Battle of Trafalgar. His other specialisms include Iberian climate studies working with colleagues at the Universities of Barcelona and Madrid. He has done much to promote the use of historical documents in climate-related research for which he was awarded the Royal Meteorological Society’s Gordon Manley and Jehudi Neumann Prizes. In addition, he has taken a lead role in a number of major European Union– and United Kingdom–funded research projects on climatic change. His publications include over 100 research papers and his books include Regional Climates of the British Isles (Routledge, 1997) and Statistical Techniques in Geographical Analysis, 3rd edition (David Fulton Publishers, 2004). He has served on the Editorial Board of a number of journals, including Weather and Climates of the Past, and he is active in the Royal Meteorological Society promoting public understanding of climatic issues and as chairman of the North East Centre. He was, for a while, a TV weather man and continues to make regular TV and radio presentations on the theme of weather and climate.
Editorial Division of Responsibilities
EDITOR-IN-CHIEFJohn A. Matthews Holocene environmental change; techniques, methodology and philosophy of environmental change; palaeoclimatology; strategy, integration, cross-referencing, final editing, additional references and index
EDITORIAL BOARDChristopher J. Barrow Human dimensions of environmental change: adaptation, vulnerability and mitigation; sustainability and development; conservation, management and policy
Doreen S. Boyd Earth observation; remote sensing; geographical information systems; environmental monitoring and environmental modelling
Christopher J. Caseldine Quaternary environmental change; dating techniques and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction; Holocene human impacts and environmental archaeology
Katherine J. Ficken Biological aspects of environmental change on long timescales; biogeochemistry; evolution and biogeography; Quaternary palaeoecology and palaeolimnology
John L. Innes Ecology; biological aspects of recent environmental change; contemporary human impacts on ecosystems and the biosphere; biological conservation
Stephen Nortcliff Pedology; soils, palaeosols and environmental change; soil conservation and management; contaminated land and land restoration
Geraint Owen Geology and geophysics; environmental change in the geological record; plate tectonics; environmental change on long (geological) timescales in terrestrial environments; geological conservation
Jennifer Pike Marine geology, oceanography and palaeoceanography; environmental change in the oceans—physical, chemical and biological aspects; marine conservation and human impacts
Richard A. Shakesby Geomorphological change in Mediterranean, temperate and cold environments; coastal environmental change; human impacts on landforms and Earth-surface processes
Rory P.D. Walsh Hydrology and palaeohydrology; fluvial geomorphology; human impacts on the hydrosphere; geomorphology and environmental change in tropical and subtropical environments
Dennis A. Wheeler Climatic change; meteorology and climatology; historical climatology; contemporary and future human impacts on the atmosphere and climate
Contributors
Tiago M. Alves (TMA) Cardiff University
Brigitta Ammann (BA) University of Bern
William E.N. Austin (WENA) University of St Andrews
Heiko Balzter (HB) University of Leicester
Christopher J. Barrow (CJB) Swansea University
Niels H. Batjes (NHB) International Soil Reference and Information Centre, Wageningen
Douglas I. Benn (DIB) University of St Andrews
Keith D. Bennett (KDB) Queen’s University
Matthew R. Bennett (MRB) Bournemouth University
H. John B. Birks (HJBB) University of Bergen
Hilary H. Birks (HHB) University of Bergen
Mary A. Boulton (MAB) University of Tennessee
Doreen S. Boyd (DSB) Nottingham University
E. Michael Bridges (EMB) Swansea University
Keith R. Briffa (KRB) University of East Anglia
Stephen J. Brooks (SJB) Natural History Museum, London
Nick D. Brown (NDB) University of Oxford
M. Jane Bunting (MJB) University of Hull
Mark B. Bush (MBB) Florida Institute of Technology
Christopher J. Caseldine (CJC) University of Exeter
Frank M. Chambers (FMC) University of Gloucestershire
Lesley Cherns (LC) Cardiff University
Michèle L. Clarke (MLC) University of Nottingham
Michelle A. Clarke (MAC) Cranfield University
Helen E. Cockerton (HEC) Swansea University
Edward R. Cook (ERC) Columbia University
John C.W. Cope (JCWC) National Museum of Wales
Richard Cornes (RC) University of East Anglia
Martin Coulson (MC) UK Defence Estates Agency
Helen K. Coxall (HKC) Cardiff University
Bryan T. Cronin (BTC) University of Aberdeen
Mark E.J. Cutler (MEJC) University of Dundee
S. Petra Dark (SPD) University of Reading
Siwan M. Davies (SMD) Swansea University
Alastair G. Dawson (AGD) University of Aberdeen
Mark H. Dinnin (MHD) University of Exeter
Stefan H. Doerr (SHD) Swansea University
P. Quentin Dresser (PQD) Swansea University
Rose M. D’Sa (RMD) European Union Economic and Social Committee, Brussels
Lisa Dumayne-Peaty (LD-P) Worcestershire County Council
Julia B. Edwards (JBE) University of Wales Newport
Derek M. Elsom (DME) Oxford Brookes University
Anette Engelmann (AE) University of Gloucestershire
Tim Fernside (TF) Swansea University
António J.D. Ferreira (AJDF) Universidade de Aveiro
Katherine J. Ficken (KJF) Swansea University
Giles M. Foody (GMF) University of Nottingham
Hugh M. French (HMF) University of Ottawa
Alejandro C. Frery (ACF) Universidade Federal de Alagoas
Janice L. Fuller (JLF) National University of Ireland
Ralph M. Fyfe (RMF) University of Plymouth
Adam R. Gardner (ARG) University of Nottingham
Brian D. Giles (BDG) University of Birmingham
Rüdiger Glaser (RG) Universität Würzburg
Michael J. Hambrey (MJH) Aberystwyth University
Edward Hanna (EH) University of Sheffield
Alfred E. Hartemink (AEH) International Soil Reference and Information Centre, Wageningen
Dawn Hendon (DH) University of Exeter
David T. Herbert (DTH) Swansea University
Sheila P. Hicks (SPH) University of Oulu
John F. Hiemstra (JFH) Swansea University
Charles R. Hipkin (CRH) Swansea University
Richard J. Huggett (RJH) University of Manchester
John B. Hunt (JBH) University of Gloucestershire
John L. Innes (JLI) University of British Columbia
Paul R. Jepson (PRJ) University of Oxford
Phil D. Jones (PDJ) University of East Anglia
Stephen H. Jones (SHJ) University of Oxford
Jeremy T. Kerr (JTK) University of Ottawa
Damian M. Lawler (DML) University of Birmingham
Mark V. Lomolino (MVL) State University of New York
Adrian J. Luckman (AJL) Swansea University
Anson W. Mackay (AWM) University College London
John A. Matthews (JAM) Swansea University
Julian C. Mayes (JCM) University of Surrey
Danny McCarroll (DMcC) Swansea University
Jennifer C. McElwain (JCMcE) The Field Museum of Natural History
Lindsey J. McEwen (LJMcE) University of the West of England
Victor Mesev (VM) Florida State University
Iris Möller (IM) University of Cambridge
Atle Nesje (AN) University of Bergen
Stephen Nortcliff (SN) University of Reading
Gregory O’Hare (GOH) University of Derby
Frank Oldfield (FO) University of Liverpool
Colin P. Osborne (CPO) University of Sheffield
Geraint Owen (GO) Swansea University
Martin A. Pearce (MAP) Statoil Gulf Services
Nick Pepin (NP) University of Portsmouth
Rupert G. Perkins (RGP) Cardiff University
Allen H. Perry (AHP) Swansea University
Jennifer Pike (JP) Cardiff University
Andrew J. Plater (AJP) University of Liverpool
Aaron P. Potito (APP) National University of Ireland Galway
Tristan L. Quaife (TLQ) University of Exeter
Benjamin T.I. Reinardy (BTIR) University of Grenada
David A. Richards (DAR) University of Bristol
Jane A. Robbins (JAR) Nottingham Trent University
Iain Robertson (IR) Swansea University
Deborah Z. Rosen (DZR) UK Environment Agency
Paul J. Saich (PJS) University College London
Danielle C. Schreve (DCS) Royal Holloway, University of London
Richard A. Shakesby (RAS) Swansea University
John Shaw (JS) University of Alberta
Geoffrey M. Smith (GMS) Specto Natura Ltd, Earth Observation Consultancy
Jamie G. Smith (JGS) Welsh Assembly Government
Ian F. Spellerberg (IFS) Lincoln University
Greg Spellman (GS) University of Northampton
Tom Spencer (TSp) University of Cambridge
Catherine E. Stickley (CES) University of Tromsø
Tazio Strozzi (TS) Gamma Remote Sensing
John C. Sweeney (JCS) National University of Ireland
Michael R. Talbot (MRT)†University of Bergen
Andrew R. Tallon (ART) University of the West of England
James P. Terry (JPT) National University of Singapore
Andrew D. Thomas (ADT) University of Salford
Colin J. Thomas (CJT) Swansea University
D. Neil Thomas (DNT) Kingston University
Russell D. Thompson (RDT) University of Reading
Colin E. Thorn (CET) University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana
John E. Thornes (JET) University of Birmingham
John G. Tyrrell (JGT) University College of Cork
Michael A. Urban (MAU) University of Missouri
Patricia Uttridge (PU) South Shields College
Amber E. Vater (AEV) Natural Environment Research Council
H. Jesse Walker (HJW) Louisiana State University
Lawrence R. Walker (LRW) University of Nevada
Chris D. Walley (CDW) American University
Rory P.D. Walsh (RPDW) Swansea University
Catherine Ward (CW) Sunderland University
Dennis A. Wheeler (DAW) Sunderland University
M. Louise Whitehead (MLW) UK Defence Estates Agency
Robert J. Whittaker (RJW) University of Oxford
Zhang Wiguo (WZ) East China Normal University
Katherine J. Willis (KJW) University of Oxford
Lindsay J. Wilson (LJW) University of St Andrews
Peter Wilson (PW) University of Ulster
U. Barbara Wohlfarth (UBW) Stockholm University
Matt J. Wooller (MJW) University of Alaska
Tim Young (TY) GeoArch
Eduardo Zorita (EZ) Institute for Coastal Research, Geesthacht
Preface
PurposeEnvironmental change, of which climatic change is a part, but not the only aspect, is a complex area of inter-disciplinary science that is developing rapidly. Although there are disciplinary and even subdisciplinary encyclopedias, which cover parts of the field of environmental change, no other encyclopedia covers the whole range of topics. The Encyclopedia of Environmental Change is an advanced work of reference for academics, teachers, students and others who may encounter environmental change in a wide range of disciplines and from a variety of perspectives. There is an academic niche for such a guide, which not only covers the field comprehensively but represents an authoritative work of scholarship and promotes research synthesis. In addition, there is a need to define, clarify and interpret the terminology employed by researchers in this field for a wider audience, increasingly aware of the existence of natural and human-induced (anthropogenic) environmental change. These are topical issues with important social consequences. Indeed, environmental change probably already poses the most important set of challenges to science and to society of the twenty-first century.
ContentThe field covered is environmental change in the broad sense, including environmental changes affecting the Earth over geological, intermediate and short timescales: Pre-Quaternary, Quaternary (the past 2.58 million years), Holocene (the past 11.7 thousand years), Anthropocene (the past ca 250 years), prehistoric, historical, current and potential future environmental changes. The field extends, on the one hand, from the natural environmental sciences into relevant areas of the physical, chemical and biological sciences, and the applied sciences (e.g. engineering, agriculture and forestry); on the other hand, it requires involvement of the social sciences and humanities (which cover essential aspects of the human environment). Indeed, the question of what to include and what to exclude presented a major problem to the editors in that almost everything can be included in the environment of some aspect of the solar system, the biophysical Earth system and the anthropogenic World system: all is interconnected; and all environments change.
Climatic change—past, present and future—is a major focus, but other topics relating to natural and anthropogenic changes to the lithosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, biosphere, pedosphere and anthroposphere are also covered in detail. Facts, concepts, theories, philosophies and issues relating to environmental change are included, as are the diverse sources of evidence of environmental change; the underlying natural and anthropogenic causal factors, mechanisms and dynamics of environmental change; the wideranging local, regional and global effects and impacts of environmental change from the polar regions to the tropics; the past, present and future responses of geoecosystems and human-environmental systems in the face of environmental change; and the approaches, methodologies and techniques used for reconstructing, dating, monitoring, modelling, projecting and predicting change. The broader cosmosphere is included insofar as it impinges on the Earth (e.g. through meteorite impact). However, the basis and focus of the Encyclopedia of Environmental Change remains the science of environmental change, but the human social, cultural, economic and political dimensions of environmental issues, environmental problems, conservation, management and policy aspects are strongly represented. Thus, the content reflects the interdependence not only of the sciences but also of environmental science and society.
ApproachThis encyclopedia takes a distinctive approach. It combines comprehensive breadth of coverage of terminology—which is the defining quality of a dictionary—with in-depth treatment of major areas of knowledge and understanding, which defines an encyclopedia. A total of over 4,000 terms are included as headwords to entries, with a similar additional number of terms appearing within the text of these entries. The entries range in scale from simple one-line definitions to short essays. There are about 80 of the highest-level entries, each comprising around 1,000 words in length with 15–20 references, which cover the key topics, paradigms, methods and other aspects of knowledge and understanding that define the field of environmental change. Intermediate-level entries cover terms that are explicitly or closely involved in the field of environmental change (and usually reappear in many higher-level entries). Lowest-level entries cover terms likely to be encountered but not always in the environmental-change context. An overall nested structure with extensive cross-referencing between entries means that explanations in the higher-level entries do not need to be interrupted to explain subsidiary terms.
Two other qualities or aims underlie this encyclopedia. First, it develops the context of the terms, explaining and exemplifying the terminology of environmental change in relation to its concepts, techniques, methodology and philosophy. This is also facilitated by the cross-referencing: small capitals are used throughout the encyclopedia for any term that has its own entry (i.e. appears as a headword); italics are used for terms that do not have their own entries but nevertheless can be found in the dictionary; such capitalised and italicised terms are included in the index (see also ‘How to Use This Encyclopedia’, p. xlix). Second, the encyclopedia is a sourcebook for further information. References listed after each entry include not only a wide range of specialist texts and review articles but also frequent examples of the cutting-edge research literature. We have striven to provide an up-to-date picture of the field incorporating appropriate recent references as well as some classics. In many respects, therefore, the Encyclopedia of Environmental Change is designed as a gateway into a complex field.
DevelopmentThis work is, in effect, a second edition of the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Environmental Change (Matthews et al., 2001), which was itself inspired by the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Physical Geography, now in its third edition (Goudie, 1985; Thomas and Goudie, 2000). The original Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Environmental Change was conceived as a millennial project amongst physical geography staff in the Department of Geography at the former University of Wales, Swansea, who made up 7 of the 10 editors. For the current Encyclopedia of Environmental Change, the number of editors has been expanded to 12, five of whom also edited the first edition and six are associated with Swansea University. The other six editors hail from the Universities of Cardiff, Exeter, Nottingham, Reading, Sunderland and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. The editorial responsibilities were divided up as listed on page xl: each editor having responsibility for entries in particular subfields, usually involving a combination of a particular environment, timescale and subject matter.
For the current encyclopedia, the original encyclopaedic dictionary has been expanded by some 50 per cent and now fills three volumes. Although the rationale is largely unchanged after 10 years, it has involved a root-and-branch revision. The previous entries have been updated thoroughly, expanding many and creating >800 new entries to cover new developments, removing or consolidating a few entries, updating the references (the majority are now from the twenty-first century), extending the cross-referencing and increasing the number of figures and tables. Special efforts have been made to improve the coverage of the human dimensions of environmental change, while retaining the focus on the science. Marine environmental change, including marine geology and climatic change, in all their dimensions, has also seen major expansion of coverage.
Editorial IssuesEach entry almost always begins with an explicit definition, which is elaborated to a greater or lesser degree depending on the level of the entry. Though it did not at times appear to be so, there was an upper limit to the size of the work, the total amount of information that was possible to include, and hence the number and/or size of the entries at the various levels. This limit necessitated minimising any overlap between related entries. This in turn means that some essential information may appear only in the cross-referenced entries. We feel that the overall balance between subject areas and levels is about right but there will inevitably be cases, hopefully not too many, where the balance could be better or something of importance has been left out; we nevertheless look forward to hearing about any such entries.
A few other specific editorial issues should be mentioned here:
- First, there are many terms in the field of environmental change that have an alternative usage. In general, these are pointed out in the encyclopedia and have sometimes been considered to warrant separate entries (e.g. ‘hotspot in biodiversity’ and ‘hotspot in geology’). Occasionally, a particular usage has been emphasised or encouraged where we think this is necessary.
- Second, the use of acronyms has been downplayed, if not dispensed with completely. Especially in the field of environmental change, the number of acronyms, most of which are unnecessary and do not promote understanding, are fast becoming counterproductive.
- Third, the units used in the encyclopedia are generally SI units (note, there is an entry on SI units).
- Fourth, dates have been expressed in a number of ways, with a general preference for AD/BC in the historical context and years ago or BP (before present, by convention before AD 1950) in the palaeoenvironmental context. However, different subfields of the study of environmental change use different notations and are still developing new ones, such as b2K (before AD 2000) used in ice-core chronologies. Greater standardisation may be necessary in the future.
- Fifth, spellings that have fallen into disuse are generally avoided (e.g. Cenozoic is used rather than Cainozoic).
- Sixth, English rather than American variants of terms have been used throughout (e.g. ‘palaeoenvironment’ is preferred to ‘paleoenvironment’). This is only because most of the editors and authors are based on the European side of the Atlantic.
- Seventh, and probably most controversially, ‘climatic change’ is used in preference to ‘climate change’. However, as acknowledged in the entry on the latter, the term ‘climate change’ was introduced in the context of recent climatic change, especially that attributable to recent ‘global warming’, and we have no objection to the term’s continued use for that purpose. The preferred use of the term ‘climatic change’ is also in keeping with the remit of this encyclopedia to cover environmental change sensu lato.
SummaryThe Encyclopedia of Environmental Change is an advanced work of reference intended to promote knowledge and understanding across this important, complex interdisciplinary field by clarifying the terminology, by providing an authoritative and up-to-date gateway to information and by encouraging the synthesis of its diverse parts. It is not a book to be read from cover to cover. However, as one reviewer of the earlier Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Environmental Change puts it:
But beware: if, like me, you enjoy following up cross-references, this book may bind your attention longer than you had intended. (Langenberg, 2002: 737–738)
AcknowledgementsThanks are still due to the editors, authors and others, who contributed in various ways to the Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Environmental Change (Matthews et al., 2001) because their legacy can still be seen in the present work. The new Editorial Board and the 140 distinguished authors (previously above) who revised original entries or provided new ones (mostly on time!) were indispensible to me as General Editor and were hopefully rewarded by pleasant breaks, afforded by working on the encyclopedia, to their otherwise onerous work schedules. Special thanks are due to Anna Ratcliffe and Nicola Jones in the Drawing Office of the Geography Department at Swansea University, who prepared 80 new figures for the encyclopedia (bringing the total to >230) to their normal high professional standard. Furthermore, the encyclopedia would not have been possible were it not for the support of Robert Rojek, who leads the team at SAGE Publications, London, and who was convinced of the value of the approach taken in this encyclopedia. Last, but not the least, I am most appreciative of my long-suffering wife, Rose, who did not protest too much at my obsession with the encyclopedia and also contributed the entry on environmental law.
References(1985) The encyclopaedic dictionary of physical geography,1st edition. Oxford: Blackwell.(2002) Words of climatic wisdom [Review of The Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Environmental Change,1st edition]. Nature415: 737–738., , (2001) The encyclopaedic dictionary of environmental change,1st edition. London: Arnold.and (2000) The dictionary of physical geography,3rd edition.Oxford: Blackwell.How to Use This Encyclopedia
First consult the headwords for over 4,000 terms and topics that are covered in alphabetical order. All such headwords appear in bold in the text.
If a term is not found as an entry in the body of the encyclopedia, consult the index, which contains terms that are explained in other entries even though they do not have their own headwords. These terms appear in the text in italics.
Words in small capitals are used throughout the work for cross-referencing. They indicate links to headwords under which further related information can be found and are used both within and at the end of entries.
References are listed at the end of most entries. These provide the reader with exemplars of the use of each term, research papers on the subject and/or further general reading. They include the sources of information cited in the text, figures and tables.
Also from SAGE Publishing
- CQ Library American political resources opens in new tab
- Data Planet A universe of data opens in new tab
- Lean Library Increase the visibility of your library opens in new tab
- SAGE Journals World-class research journals opens in new tab
- SAGE Research Methods The ultimate methods library opens in new tab
- SAGE Stats Data on demand opens in new tab