Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
erosion. Similarly, almost every technological innovation has
the potential to affect human-environment relationships in
some way.
In the 'adaptive systems' model interactions between environment
and society are mediated by many more social, cultural, economic,
and political factors. Thus there are many reciprocal relationships
with feed-back and feed-forward loops, as indicated by the
direction of the arrows between compartments in Figure 16(C).
These features of the model refl ect the complexities of the ways
environments are perceived and used, and the ability of society
to develop adaptive mechanisms and modify their strategies
over time. Human adjustment to fl ood hazard provides a good
example. In modern Western societies this, more often than not,
takes the form of engineering schemes that protect against fl oods
likely to recur once in a century or two. This solution has been
adopted as a result of the interaction of social demands, economic
costs, and political pressures. It represents one possible response
to fl ooding - not necessarily the optimum strategy - that has
evolved over time.
Geographical work focusing on the effects of environment
on society contributes, for example, to understanding the
exploitation of natural resources, and the vulnerability of
people to natural hazards. A natural resource includes anything
in the natural environment that is capable of exploitation by
society, but what is exploited as a resource in a particular place
depends not only on its availability but also on what that society
values and chooses to exploit. Societies in different places or
at different times may perceive resources differently because
of different cultural values, levels of technology, or economic
or political considerations. The position of wildlife is a good
example in this respect: to some it is regarded as a source of food,
such as 'bush meat', whereas to others it must be preserved for
posterity or exploited in different ways by tourists. The geography
of natural resources therefore draws on both the biophysical
