Concept Caching: Muslim women in Sanaa, Yemen

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all Geography classes.

According to the post Geography Directions: No More Water by 2025? the Northern Yemeni city of Sanaa is at an extreme risk of water scarcity as its fresh water sources, already limited, are increasingly stressed by the combination of its arid environment, lack of freshwater hydro-geography, and growing population demands.  What will become of this UNESCO World Heritage site when all the water is gone?

Geography Directions: No More Water by 2025?

From our Geography Directions site reviewing Wiley-Blackwell’s Geography Compass review journal covering the entire discipline.  Keep up with cutting edge academic geography.  These articles may be useful for introducing students to the discipline or may be appropriate for upper division Geography classes.

Experts are warning that Yemenis living in the capital city, Sana’a, may no longer have access to water by 2025. Like many Middle Eastern countries, Yemen is an arid country that faces a problem of water scarcity*. Rain and groundwater are the main sources of water in Yemen since there are no rivers in the country. A recent New York Times article reports that if water management does not improve, it may lead to massive population displacement as well as job losses and declining incomes. These conclusions are based on a preliminary study produced by the consulting firm McKinsey and Company at the request of the Yemeni government.

Demand for water in Yemen has greatly increased over the past decades, due to a fast growing population that has doubled since 1975, and to the prevalence of the cultivation of qat, a mildly narcotic leaf that generates more income than other cash crops. Yemeni farms use about 90 percent of the country’s water. Thousands of wells have been drilled illegally to irrigate crops, and the growing need for water and inadequate irrigation techniques have resulted in the depletion of Yemen’s aquifers, with groundwater being extracted faster than it can be replenished by natural discharge. This has led to migration from rural to urban areas, as streams dry up and people can no longer farm on their land. It is important to note that Yemen is a major food importer, with around 90 percent of its food coming from abroad.

There have been different campaigns to educate Yemenis about sustainable water management options at the individual level, like the one in the video presented here, and the creation of Rowyan, a national mascot to encourage water conservation. Several projects related to sustainable water management in Sana’a and at the national level are being funded by international organisations and the EU, and water rationing is being carried out in most of the major cities.

A Geography Compass paper by Hassan et al. (2010) provides insights into the challenges and opportunities related to water management in an arid Arab country. Although the politics, geography and level of water scarcity differ, a comparative approach could be taken to draw parallels between scenarios in Palestine and Yemen. For readers who prefer a more theoretical approach to the sustainability of water use, another Geography Compass paper by Hauhs and Graefe (2009) presents perspectives from the social and natural sciences, and shows how both of these approaches can be combined to facilitate discussions amongst water managers with different backgrounds.

*Water scarce countries are defined by the World Bank as those that have less than 1,000 m3 of renewable internal freshwater resources available per capita in a year. Yemen is estimated to have about 200 m3 of water per capita, which is 3 percent of the global average of 6,750 m3.

By Magali Bonne-Moreau

To view the original article please visit the Geography Directions Blog.

Concept Caching: Nairobi, Kenya

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all Geography classes.

Africa is one of the last areas on Earth where “wild” and “domesticated” seem to coexist, interact and rely on one another.  The post, Geography Directions: Mhiripiri bombs, guard donkeys, and conservation planning in Sub-Saharan Africa describes the complex interactions between national economies and tourism, with local economies and agriculture/animal domestication.  This image provides an illustration of local animal domestication and the taming of the “wild” in Nairobi, Kenya.

Geography Directions: Mhiripiri Bombs, guard donkeys and Conservation Planning in sub-Saharan Africa

From our Geography Directions site reviewing Wiley-Blackwell’s Geography Compass review journal covering the entire discipline.  Keep up with cutting edge academic geography.  These articles may be useful for introducing students to the discipline or may be appropriate for upper division Geography classes.

In Brian King’s article “Conservation Geographies in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Politics of National Parks, Community Conservation and Peace Parks” in Geography Compass he reviews the history of conservation planning in sub-Saharan Africa. The study provides an insight into National Parks, community conservation, and Peace Parks, and affords an understanding of ‘the development politics and governance challenges of global conservation’.

The establishment of National Parks was largely set up for the purposes of hunting and tourism but at the same time the indigenous populations were forcibly evicted from the area. Since then, concerns about the ethical and economic impacts on the protected areas have generated interest in including the local population in natural resource management. More recently the integration of ecology concepts into the planning process has produced an interest in larger scale initiatives which maximise protected habitat. Central to this are transboundary conservation areas otherwise known as Peace Parks which cross national political borders. Although these approaches are not mutually exclusive, the study stresses that they represent major routes to conservation planning in Sub-Saharan Africa.

As for community conservation, a recent report from the Food and Agriculture Association of the United Nations (FAO) offers advice to people living within (and outside) park boundaries who come into contact with wildlife on a daily basis, on how to live side–by-side with wild animals.  The Human-Wildlife Conflict Toolkit, currently being tested in southern Africa offers colourful advice on how to solve, mitigate and prevent conflict between humans and wild animals. Designed to reduce the threat to peoples’ lives, crops and livestock and to their health from animal-borne diseases, the Conflict Toolkit offers tips to keep cohabitation safer for everyone.  For instance, in order to chase off elephants which are trying to eat villagers’ crops, the FAO suggests using a Mhiripiri Bomber which is a plastic gun that shoots ping-pong balls full of a highly concentrated chilli solution (which elephants hate), that burst over the elephants skin. For hippos that enjoy raiding crops by night they suggest shining a strong light in their eyes. As for warning of the approach of predators the FAO suggest investing in a guard donkey, because they are fearless and can drive away even large carnivores by braying, biting and kicking.

Generally speaking, however, the FAO see that the best way to reduce the human-wildlife problem, is to educate farmers, villagers and  policy makers, to see wild animals as an asset. The FAO feel that villagers will only stop seeing wild animals as a nuisance if rural communities receive some material advantage from living in close contact with animal populations. They suggest that paying villagers a percentage of the revenue derived from tourism, paying for the environmental services they provide and compensation for damage to crops, injury or loss of life should also be considered.

By Paulette Cully

To view the original article please visit the Geography Directions Blog.

Concept Caching: Luxor, Egypt

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all Geography classes.

In our Concept Caching site, there are countless examples of the human-environment connection.  Despite its subdued appearance, this image of Luxor, Egypt offers an extraordinary representation of this interaction.  On the banks of the Nile River, surrounded by the vast Egyptian desert, Luxor is one of the world’s oldest continuously settled and cultivated areas on Earth.  In the post Biomes to Anthromes, the inclusion of human influence on ecological communities puts this Egyptian riverine landscape in true perspective.

Concept Caching: Shennong River, China

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all Geography classes.

The Shennong River is one of the tributaries to the Yangtze River in China. It is a sleepy river valley with farm houses nestled along the valley floor and its surrounding mountains. Farmers in this community must terrace the surrounding hills to have sufficient acreage to cultivate. This means laborious work by hand, bringing buckets of water up and down the mountains every day to make sure their precious crops are sustained.

This image submitted by Vicki Drake offers a picturesque visualization for some of the rural landscapes of the Chinese interior.  The Shennong River, or Shen Nong Stream, is one of the tributaries to the Yangtze River just miles upriver from the Three Gorges Dam.  The Shennong valley blends from agricultural landscape to geological landscape as its stream grade cuts one of the lesser gorges leading to the Yangtze in this high relief area.  The image can suggest the “sleepy” quality of the area, but can also foster recognition of the potential for natural disasters and difficulty in providing emergency services in such relatively remote, but populated area, as mentioned in the post Chinese Environmental Problems and the Potential for Change.

Concept Caching: Haiti and Dominican Republic political boundary

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all  Geography classes.

This image submitted by Harm de Blij reveals a striking landscape of deforestation and hints at the differing impacts of local politics and governance that is behind such a difficult global problem.  The image provides a pertinent partner for the discussion of deforestation in the post, Hopes for World Forests.

Hopes for World Forests

Deforestation has long been a troubling global trend that has affected most of Earth’s arboreal environments.  Discussions of this topic may often focus on the economic and agricultural reasons for the destruction of forestlands.  Juxtaposed are the greedy corporations and illegal loggers against indigent subsistence farmers desperate for land.  Either way, the discussion ends as so many talks of 21^st century environmental problems often do: disheartened and despondent.  However, there has been much recent buzz in the media related to deforestation, and some of it actually hopeful.

A Newsweek article believes that Haiti’s economic recovery may be contingent upon the recovery of its forest lands.  Haiti’s trees have long been mowed down by colonizers, plantations, industry and locals alike.  It is hoped that reforestation will ultimately help to minimize the impact of natural disasters, like hurricanes and floods, and to restore nutrients to overworked agricultural lands.

On a global scale, recent policies of developing countries have made a concerted effort to remove illegally logged wood from world markets.  The New York Times Green blog reports on the European Parliament’s bill cracking down on timber from illegal logging.  Other countries from the developing world like Nigeria and Ghana to the developed world like the United States have previously contributed to fining or banning wood logged illicitly.

In particular, it is the Amazon that many environmentalists lay their hopes on.  The New York Times Dot Earth blog reports on the optimism that comes with Brazil’s current demographic and economic development trajectories and with restoration and preservation efforts of environmentalists on the ground.  The Amazon has also been the subject of a year-long study conducted by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (also reported with accompanying images at Surrey Satellite Technology LTD’s Space Blog).  They analyzed satellite images of the region which revealed a slowing of deforestation rates as compared with previous years.

The link between the world’s forests and possible climate change should also be discussed in any deforestation dialogue.  Earth scientists have long been studying the carbon cycle and tracking the ways that carbon is found in active and inactive stores throughout the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere.  One of the global scale puzzle pieces to this study has now been provided by NASA satellites as they mapped world tree heights.  CNN argues that this will aid in tracking world forest carbon and study the ability of world forests to continue to take up atmospheric carbon. This map will also help to produce models to understand forest fires, ecosystems, and more.

A succinct article provided by the New York Times Green blog titled, “Is the tide turning on deforestation?” is suitable for most undergrad students and sums up these hopeful developments well.  Combine that with a recent BBC News article that reports the findings of the London-based think tank Chatham House observing a marked decline in illegal logging and discusses the major contributions to that trend.

However hopeful, this deforestation discussion should also end with a sobering dose of reality:  reiterating that deforestation, especially at the hand of illegal logging, is still a harrowing global problem.

Discussion Questions:

1. How might economic recovery connect to reforestation in the example of Haiti?  Explain the benefits of reforestation and how they will contribute to economic gains.

2. Suggest comparisons or contrasts of the policies against illegal logging between the developing world and developed world.  Think about production/consumption and source/destination streams, as well as underlying motivations at various scales.

3. How will the mapping of world tree heights help scientists to track carbon and understand climate change?

4. What hopeful trend countering deforestation do you think will make the most difference and why?  Do you have any other suggestions for what the global community can do to help save the world’s forests?

Disastrous Playlist (Redux)

Pursuant to my posting from last week concerning My Disastrous Playlist, I am posting the whole list of songs that I have put together for use during the breaks in my Natural Hazards class. I have added a couple of the suggestions provided by commentators, too – thanks!

James, I’m saving your suggestions for my Environmental Science playlist – stay tuned for that, or maybe you can post yours…? But I also like the idea of using songs to introduce specific lecture topics. How about this one for your insolation lecture: Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas) by They Might Be Giants, which I discovered while researching one of the other suggestions. I haven’t actually listened to it yet, but the lyrics start out:

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees

Yo ho, it’s hot, the sun is not
A place where we could live
But here on earth there’d be no life
Without the light it gives

Again my disclaimer for using the playlist – you need to actually LISTEN to all of these before you play any of them in your classroom. I have vetted them fairly thoroughly for overtly objectionable language, but everyone has different levels of tolerance. The range of musical styles represented here is very broad – everything from punk to alternative, hip-hop, reggae, inspirational, jazz, and traditional music. You have to decide what to play based on your own level of comfort and your students’ sensibilities.

But they’re all fun! So here’s my complete Disastrous Playlist – so far – along with the name of the album in parentheses; it’s in some kind of semi-alphabetical order, as per iTunes. By the way, so far Bob Dylan and Sufjan Stevens are tied for the most songs on the list:

1. Volcano by The Akkademiks (The Akkademiks….ROCK! And by the way, this is an entire album of geologically-themed songs. They have other-themed science albums, too, hence the band’s nerdy name.)
2. Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) by The Arcade Fire (Funeral)
3. Los Angeles Is Burning by Bad Religion (The Empire Strikes First)
4. Volcano by Blues Machine (The Blues Tribute to Jimmy Buffett)
5. Shelter From The Storm by Bob Dylan (The Essential Bob Dylan – Disc 2)
6. Hurricane by Bob Dylan (The Essential Bob Dylan – Disc 2)
7. The Levee’s Gonna Break by Bob Dylan (Modern Times)
8. Black Diamond Bay by Bob Dylan (Bob Dylan: The Collection)
9. I Feel The Earth Move by Carole King (Tapestry)
10. 20 Year Flood by Chris Velan (Twitter, Buzz, Howl)
11. Upon This Tidal Wave Of Young Blood by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah)
12. London Calling by The Clash (London Calling)
13. Volcano by Count Basie & His Orchestra (The Classic Swing Collection)
14. Landslide by The Dixie Chicks (Home)
15. Riders on the Storm by The Doors (L.A. Woman)
16. Flood by Eleven Fingered Charlie (Owl Hollow Acoustic Sessions)
17. Landslide by Fleetwood Mac (The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac)
18. The Lightning Storm by Flogging Molly (Float)
19. End Of The World by Great Big Sea (Rant And Roar)
20. Warning by Green Day International Superhits)
21. Storm by Gregory Isaacs (One Man Against the World: The Best of Gregory Issacs)
22. Volcano by Jamaican Steel Band (Steel Drums of the Caribbean, Vol. 2)
23. Fire And Rain by James Taylor (Sweet Baby James)
24. Flood by Jars of Clay (Jars of Clay)
25. Willow by Joan Armatrading (Love and Affection: Joan Armatrading Classics 1975-1983)
26. Electrical Storm by Joseph Arthur (Nuclear Daydream)
27. Down In the Flood by Mark Selby (Mark Otis Selby…And the Horse He Rode In On)
28. Red River Flood by Murray McLauchlan (Songs from the Street: The Best of Murray McLauchlan)
29. Volcanoes by Povi (Life In Volcanoes)
30. End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) by R.E.M. (Document)
31. Riders On the Storm by Snoop Dogg featuring The Doors (Riders On the Storm – Fredwreck Remix)
32. Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Step-Mother! by Sufjan Stevens (Illinoise – and yes, I know that’s not how it is spelled – you’ll have to talk to Sujan Stevens about it…)
33. Prairie Fire That Wanders About by Sufjan Stevens (Illinoise)
34. The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us by Sufjan Stevens (Illinoise)
35. The Avalanche by Sufjan Stevens (Illinoise – who would have guessed that Sufjan Stevens would have so many disaster-themed songs…?)
36. Galveston Flood by Tom Rush (Take a Little Walk With Me)
37. Wasn’t That a Might Storm by Tom Rush (New Year)
38. New Orleans Is Sinking by The Tragically Hip (Yer Favourites – Disc 1)
39. Electrical Storm (William Orbit Mix) by U2 (The Best of 1990-2000)
40. Volcano Girls by Veruca Salt (Eight Arms to Hold You)
41. Deluge by Wayne Shorter (Juju)

Barbara Murck is a Geologist and Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science at the University of Toronto, Mississauga as well as a Wiley author.

Concept Caching: Soybean Agriculture in Presho, South Dakota

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all  Geography classes.

This image submitted by Erin Fouberg provides a visualization of the scale and landscapes of crop agriculture in the United States.  The companion image description offers insight into this landscape and details over the two types of crop agriculture in this region.  It is also an interesting visual companion to some of the issues raised in the post, “Geographies of Green Diets.”

“Driving across the semiarid ranchlands of western South Dakota, I noticed the presence of a crop in the landscape that was recently found only in the eastern, moister region of the state: soybeans.

I called a colleague who works in agriculture at South Dakota State University to ask, “When did the cattle ranchers of western South Dakota start growing soybeans?” He replied, “When the soy biodiesel plants started popping up in Nebraska and Kansas and when genetically modified soybeans made it possible to grow the crop here.” He explained the development of Roundup Ready soybeans, a particular genetically modified soybean that can grow in more arid regions of the country. First, you plant the soybean; then you use an airplane to spray Roundup, a common weed killer that is manufactured by the company that produces the Roundup Ready soybeans, over the field. The application of Roundup over the entire field saves a lot of time and energy for the farmers because the genetically modified soybeans are resistant to the Roundup, but the weeds are killed. Monsanto, the company that produces Roundup, has developed soybeans, corn, cotton, and other crops that are resistant to Roundup.

Counter to the genetically modified Roundup Ready crops, organic agriculture —the production of crops without the use of synthetic or industrially produced pesticides and fertilizers—is also on the rise in North America. In wealthier parts of the world, the demand for organic products has risen exponentially in recent years. Sales of organic food in the United States, for example, went from under $200 million in 1980 to $1.5 billion by the early 1990s to over $10 billion by 2003 and $17.8 billion in 2007. Organic foods are now about 3 percent of all food sales in the country. The growth rate is so strong that some predict organic sales will approach 10 percent of total U.S. food sales within a decade. Parts of western Europe are already approaching that figure—notably Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and parts of Germany.”

To continue reading the cache description visit the Concept Caching website.

« Previous Page — Next Page »