Ecological Planning Method - Design with the Desert: Conservation and Sustainable Development - page 237

Time
FIGURE 13.2
Layer-cake model.
ecosystems. An understanding of human ecology may provide a key to sociocultural
inventory and analysis. Since humans are living things, human ecology may be thought of
as an expansion of ecology, of how humans interact with each other and their environ-
ments. Interaction then is used as both a basic concept and an explanatory device. As
Gerald Young, 37- 40 who has illustrated the pandisciplinary scope of human ecology, noted:
In human ecology, the way people interact with each other and with the environment is
definitive of a number of basic relationships. Interaction provides a measure of belong-
ing, it affects identity versus alienation, including alienation from the environment. The
system of obligation, responsibility and liability is defined through interaction. The pro-
cess has become definitive of the public interest as opposed to private interests which
prosper in the spirit of independence. 41
13.2.5 Step 5: Detailed Studies
Detailed studies link the inventory and analysis information to the problem(s) and goal(s).
One example of such studies is suitability analysis. As explained by McHarg, 42 suitability
analyses can be used to determine the fitness of a specific place for a variety of land uses
based on thorough ecological inventories and on the values of land users. The basic pur-
pose of the detailed studies is to gain an understanding about the complex relationships