Island Landscapes takes a critical look at the evolution of European islandscapes and seascapes to examine the conditions facing them in the twenty first century. Considering island landscapes as an expression of European culture, this book envisages future trends and presents clearly the need to find a balance between preservation and development to ensure sustainability. Both large and small islands are illustrated in the book including the British Isles, Malta and Cyprus as well as archipelagos in Norway, Italy and Greece. Their unique identities and values reveal the remarkable breadth of cultural heritage possessed by these diverse European islands. An interdisciplinary approach is applied to the history, perception, characterisation and planning of islandscape and seascape in Europe, to support culturally-oriented strategies for these fragile landscapes.
Island Landscapes takes a critical look at the evolution of European islandscapes and seascapes to examine the conditions facing them in the twenty first century. Considering island landscapes as an expression of European culture, this book envisages future trends and presents clearly the need to find a balance between preservation and development to ensure sustainability. Both large and small islands are illustrated in the book including the British Isles, Malta and Cyprus as well as archipelagos in Norway, Italy and Greece. Their unique identities and values reveal the remarkable breadth of cultural heritage possessed by these diverse European islands. An interdisciplinary approach is applied to the history, perception, characterisation and planning of islandscape and seascape in Europe, to support culturally-oriented strategies for these fragile landscapes.
Mediterranean islands exhibit many similarities in their biotic ecological, physical and environmental characteristics. There are also many differences in terms of their human colonization and current anthropogenic pressures. This book addresses in three sections these characteristics and examines the major environmental changes that the islands experienced during the Quaternary period. The first section provides details on natural and cultural factors which have shaped island landscapes. It describes the environmental and cultural changes of the Holocene and their effects on biota, as well as on the current human pressures that are now threats to the sustainability of the island communities. The second section focuses on the landscapes of the largest islands namely Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, Cyprus, Crete, Malta and the Balearics. Each island chapter includes a special topic reflecting a particular characteristic of the island. Part three presents strategies for action towards sustainability in Mediterranean islands and concludes with a comparison between the largest islands. Despite several published books on Mediterranean ecosystems/landscapes there is no existing book dealing with Mediterranean islands in a collective manner. Students, researchers and university lecturers in environmental science, geography, biology and ecology will find this work invaluable as a cross-disciplinary text while planners and politicians will welcome the succinct summaries as background material to planning decisions.
"Pacific island landscapes explores the origin and physical history of one of the least known regions of the Earth's surface - the Pacific Islands. Never before has such a systematic account of the island groups been compiled. In this volume, Patrick Nunn outlines how each of the main island groups originated then gives detailed accounts - much from his own research -- - of islands in Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. A final substantive chapter treats the interaction of early human settlers of Pacific Islands and their environments."--Back cover
Restoring Disturbed Landscapes is a hands-on guide for individuals and groups seeking to improve the functional capacity of landscapes. Abundantly illustrated with photos and figures, Restoring Disturbed Landscapes is an engaging and accessible work designed specifically for restoration practitioners with limited training or experience in the field. It uses a five-step adaptive procedure to tell restorationists where to start, what information they need to acquire, and how to apply this information to their specific situations. Cosponsored by the Society for Ecological Restoration International and Island Press, this series offers a foundation of practical knowledge and scientific insight that will help ecological restoration become the powerful reparative and healing tool that the world needs
An account of eminent women landscape architects who flourished in the golden age of country estates. This beautiful book covers in depth the work of six designers Beatrix Farrand, Martha Hutcheson, Marian Coffin, Ellen Shipman, Ruth Dean, and Annette Hoyt Flanders and looks at a dozen other less-well-known women. It focuses on the Long Island projects that constituted a large part of their work and brings these pioneering women to life as people and as professionals.
As the world population grows, so does the demand for food, putting unprecedented pressure on agricultural lands. In many desert dryland regions, however, intensive cultivation is causing their productivity to decline precipitously. "Rewilding" the least productive of these landscapes offers a sensible way to reverse the damage, recover natural diversity, and ensure long-term sustainability of remaining farms and the communities they support. This accessibly written, groundbreaking contributed volume is the first to examine in detail what it would take to retire eligible farmland and restore functioning natural ecosystems. The lessons in Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes will be useful to conservation leaders, policymakers, groundwater agencies, and water managers looking for inspiration and practical advice for solving the complicated issues of agricultural sustainability and water management.
Landscape ecology is a widely influential approach to looking at ecological function at the scale of landscapes, and accepting that human beings powerfully affect landscape pattern and function. It goes beyond investigation of pristine environments to consider ecological questions that are raised by patterns of farming, forestry, towns, and cities. Placing Nature is a groundbreaking volume in the field of landscape ecology, the result of collaborative work among experts in ecology, philosophy, art, literature, geography, landscape architecture, and history. Contributors asked each other: What is our appropriate role in nature? How are assumptions of Western culture and ingrained traditions placed in a new context of ecological knowledge? In this book, they consider the goals and strategies needed to bring human-dominated landscapes into intentional relationships with nature, articulating widely varied approaches to the task. In the essays: novelist Jane Smiley, ecologist Eville Gorham, and historian Curt Meine each examine the urgent realities of fitting together ecological function and culture philosopher Marcia Eaton and landscape architect Joan Nassauer each suggest ways to use the culture of nature to bring ecological health into settled landscapes urban geographer Judith Martin and urban historian Sam Bass Warner, geographer and landscape architect Deborah Karasov, and ecologist William Romme each explore the dynamics of land development decisions for their landscape ecological effects artist Chris Faust's photographs juxtapose the crass and mundane details of land use with the poetic power of ecological pattern. Every possible future landscape is the embodiment of some human choice. Placing Nature provides important insight for those who make such choices -- ecologists, ecosystem managers, watershed managers, conservation biologists, land developers, designers, planners -- and for all who wish to promote the ecological health of their communities.
A beautiful, lyrical exploration of the places where nature is flourishing in our absence "[Flyn] captures the dread, sadness, and wonder of beholding the results of humanity's destructive impulse, and she arrives at a new appreciation of life, 'all the stranger and more valuable for its resilence.'" --The New Yorker Some of the only truly feral cattle in the world wander a long-abandoned island off the northernmost tip of Scotland. A variety of wildlife not seen in many lifetimes has rebounded on the irradiated grounds of Chernobyl. A lush forest supports thousands of species that are extinct or endangered everywhere else on earth in the Korean peninsula's narrow DMZ. Cal Flyn, an investigative journalist, exceptional nature writer, and promising new literary voice visits the eeriest and most desolate places on Earth that due to war, disaster, disease, or economic decay, have been abandoned by humans. What she finds every time is an "island" of teeming new life: nature has rushed in to fill the void faster and more thoroughly than even the most hopeful projections of scientists. Islands of Abandonment is a tour through these new ecosystems, in all their glory, as sites of unexpected environmental significance, where the natural world has reasserted its wild power and promise. And while it doesn't let us off the hook for addressing environmental degradation and climate change, it is a case that hope is far from lost, and it is ultimately a story of redemption: the most polluted spots on Earth can be rehabilitated through ecological processes and, in fact, they already are.
