Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Towards the middle of the 20th century, the German
geographer Karl Troll was a major force in developing a
geo-ecological approach to integrated geography based on
landscape viewed as the product of natural and human processes.
This can be seen as the initial stimulus to the late 20th-century
emergence of the interdisciplinary fi eld of landscape ecology,
to which Russian, American, and Dutch geographers have
also been major contributors. Landscape ecology has been
defi ned as:
… the study of spatial variation in landscapes at a variety of scales.
It includes the biophysical and societal causes and consequences of
landscape heterogeneity.
International Association of Landscape Ecology,
Mission Statement
(1998)
Ideas from landscape ecology have had a major infl uence on
physical geographers as they have moved away from an emphasis
on topography towards a deeper understanding of process
interactions and how landscapes function and change as holistic
systems. In geomorphology, for example, landscape change is seen
as involving sediment budgets with various inputs and outputs of
mass and energy; interactions between a range of Earth-surface
processes, the substrate and the vegetation and soil cover; and
erosional and depositional events that vary in magnitude and
frequency through time. A good term for this is 'landscape
dynamics'. Similarly, in their contribution to Quaternary science,
physical geographers interpret their sections through sedimentary
deposits and their sediment cores as a result of many interacting
landscape processes forced by both natural and anthropogenic
factors. Modern landscape ecology has been greatly affected and
facilitated by the development of remote sensing and GIS. These
technologies were designed for describing and analysing patterns
and change in landscapes, and are highly applicable to landscape
management and landscape planning.
