Geographical Landscape Research Articles

ECOLOGICAL–LANDSCAPE CHARACTERISTICS OF PROTECTIVE FORESTS ON THE SOUTH-EASTERN SHORE OF LAKE ONEGO

Data representing the natural characteristics, present-day condition and consequences of the anthropogenic transformation (based on comparison with archival forest inventory data) of forests in the south-eastern part of the shore are reported. The area in question spans some 30 km from the Vodla River mouth to Lake Muromskoye, including near-shore islands. The material was gathered by analyzing available archival data, as well as during transect surveys of shore landscape characteristics and from forest cover descriptions made for 22 model sites in 2018. This activity was part of a project for the study of petroglyph-bearing sites. All of the south-eastern shore lies within a lacustrine and glaciolacustrine moderately paludified flatland landscape dominated by spruce habitats. It is one of the most widespread types of geographical landscape in the middle and southern taiga subzones in the west of European Russia. In the Karelian middle taiga alone it is represented by six contours encompassing in total more than 600,000 ha. As the lake was regressing, ecosites with bedrock outcrops, rather atypical of this landscape, locally formed along the shoreline. In all, 4 types of shoreline were distinguished: rocky, rocky-sandy, bouldery, floodplain. They alternate in different combinations and define the structure of the forests directly adjacent to the south-eastern part of the lake (the spectrum of forest types, their ratios, spatial arrangement, stand composition, etc.). The most typical topographic ecological series of forest types within shore ecosites were identified and described. The vulnerability of the ecosystems to natural and human impacts (soil cover erosion, fires, windthrow, recreation) was assessed. The present-day situation was assessed with view to identifying protective and protected forest categories.

Moedas romanas além das fronteiras, o caso do Norte da Europa

As moedas romanas em contextos do norte da Europa se destacam por serem o conjunto de objetos romanos de maior ocorrência no além-fronteira. São produto de relações políticas específicas, que estão ligadas aos contextos históricos das fronteiras no início da antiguidade tardia e além. Em todo o escopo temporal em que elas estão em circulação, dos séculos III d.C. ao V d.C., teremos as seguintes denominações: denários, sestércios, aureus e solidus, cada uma representando períodos diversos da história do Império Romano na antiguidade tardia. Essas denominações são vistas em uma vasta extensão territorial na qual se encontram os seguintes países apresentados neste texto: Alemanha, Polônia, Suécia e Dinamarca. O artigo busca apresentar as visões da literatura contemporânea para as interpretações e contextos que servem de base para a circulação das moedas romanas para além fronteira.

Changing places: geographies of post-disaster landscapes

ABSTRACTThis article introduces some of the ways geographers have attempted to make sense of disaster recovery landscapes. Acknowledging that geographers frame ‘place’ as layered with meaning, the article seeks to open out discussion about how disasters (and recovery from them) might change the ways in which people understand and connect with specific places. Importantly, disasters are not just characterised by material or infrastructural damage, but also by ‘ruptures’ to the ways in which people make sense of place - ruptures that can enable new cultural, political and ethical practices to emerge. The article draws specifically on examples from the Christchurch post-earthquake landscape - a city on the South Island of New Zealand that, in late 2010 and early 2011, experienced a series of earthquakes that resulted in significant loss of life and material devastation. The presented examples offer evidence for an interpretation of recovery in Christchurch as something other than a return to ‘normality’. Instead, we might think about the city as a ‘ruptured place’ through which pre-existing inequalities and senses of belonging are being contested in the construction of a ‘new normal’.

Polygenesis of island geosystems

Research into the nature and structure of polygenetic landscapes began in the 1970s and showed that the physical geography of landscapes results from the combined effects of multiple geophysical fields. Since islands are isolated their origin, area and topography are distinct from continental areas. These distinctions have been revealed by studies of island landscapes. The peculiarities of manifestation and interaction of the geostationary, geocirculating and biocirculating geophysical fields result in the formation of the polystructural and polygenetic landscapes of island geosystem. This is shown based on research focused on landscape organization of the Kurile and the Hawaiian Islands as well as those of Peter the Great Bay (the Sea of Japan). The author demonstrates that the island geosystems represent the combination of all genetic versions of geosystems. The genesis, physical properties and spatial location of island geosystems define their regional features, whereas the fundamental processes of functioning remain uniform and do not depend on any factors but are rather due to the presence of the properties of closed geographical systems.

Criminal Intimacies: Psycho-Sexual Spatialities of Jamaican Transnational Crime in Garfield Ellis’s Till I’m Laid to Rest

How might we understand the sexual body as a significant site for tracing the spatial imaginaries of Jamaican transnational crime? Garfield Ellis’s novel of transnational crime Till I’m Laid to Rest tracks the extended terrain of Jamaica’s criminal activity beyond the inner-city scenes and the shores of Jamaica to Miami, USA, dubbed Kingston 21. In so doing, Ellis is less interested in the macro-spatialities of the geographical landscape of crime, and more interested in the micro-spaces of intimacies which engender criminal activity. In reading criminal intimacies in this novel, I draw connections between work on “postcolonial,” “proximate,” “homosocial” and “monstruous” intimacies. While smaller material sites such as the car, the vault and briefcases and bags of money work as motifs of criminality in Ellis’s novel, the major geographical sites of Sufferer’s Heights and the cityscapes of Miami are shrouded in secrecy, while the criminal enterprise is primarily registered in the sonic spaces of ghetto-grapevine gossip. By turning attention to the emotional geographies of these novels, this essay mines rapes and coerced intimacies as well as homosocial friendships and romantic intimacies as a way of mapping the psycho-sexual dimension of Jamaican transnational crime.

CONSIDERATION ON THE ATMOSPHERIC PRECIPITATIONS IN THE CENTRAL PLATEAU OF MOLDAVIA

Atmospheric precipitation represents one of the important climatic parameters that characterize the individuality of the climate of the regions, by its decisive influence on the climatic characteristics, but also on the geographic landscape. Therefore, this parameter is important from a theoretical point of view, but also a practical importance through the direct impact and the modifications that they bring to the activity of some important fields such as agriculture, transport, construction, tourism etc. In the present paper is intended to contribute to the scientific knowledge of this important climatic element in the Central Moldavian Plateau. The average of thew annual, semestrial and monthly precipitation quantities from the Central Moldovan Plateau were analyzed. The average annual values of the atmospheric precipitation in the Central Moldavian Plateau are slightly lower than in other regions of Romania (except for the Iași Coast), due to the continental influence, which is also manifested by the high percentage of the average precipitation in the warm semester and by summer. June is the month with the highest average amounts of rainfall, and February (isolated January), the month with the smallest average quantities.

СОВРЕМЕННЫЕ КРИТЕРИИ ОБНОВЛЕНИЯ СИСТЕМЫ ВЕДЕНИЯ САДОВОДСТВА В СЕЛЬСКОХОЗЯЙСТВЕННЫХ ОРГАНИЗАЦИЯХ

The analysis of the criteria indicating the relevance of updating the requirements for greening industrial horticulture and the methodology of its ecological-landscape of land management in agricultural landscapes of agricultural enterprises was carried out. Legislative acts of the Russian Federation are considered, providing the formula for such a restructuring in accordance with global trends of greening economic activity, increasing the pace of production intensification and observing the principles of environmental protection. The obstacles preventing the acceleration of this restructuring in a market economy with patterns of zonal biologization of fruit production and its territorial organization in agricultural enterprises without taking into account the divisions of the geographical landscape are explained. In order to update the methodology of industrial horticulture, a discussion was held on the criteria of the legal field protected by RF legislative acts in carrying out the reform of on-farm land management in agricultural landscapes of agricultural enterprises and creating places with favorable habitat for garden landscapes in them. When working on the methodology, sources of information on the principles of restructuring were used, which were borrowed from legislative acts of the Russia, land management techniques based on the ecologicallandscape approach and reports on its approbation in agricultural enterprises of the central region of the Russia. The peculiarities of methodology reorganization were discussed by considering the concept of creating garden landscapes as part of agrolandscapes of agricultural enterprises, taking into account the methods of assessing the agroecological grouping of lands in agrolandscapes for horticulture, assessing the importance of landscape ecology, landscape ecology and engineering, variations of environmental and energy management, environmental safety of modern agricultural technologies. Analyzed the conditions for certification of gardening, taking into account international standards (ХАССП/HACCP, ISO 50001, ISO 9000, ISO 9001) and their Russian counterparts (GOST R). In conclusions it is specified modern value of “legal framework” of acts of the Russian Federation of the working sites concerning reorganization of intra-economic land management for the purpose of creation of industrial agricultural (garden) landscapes. Application for this purpose criteria of the new knowledge base of the agroecology based on the principles of agrolandchaftovedenie management, engineering, environmental monitoring and power audit, quality management of products taking into account domestic and international standards (следует дополнить в соответствии с сделанным выше замечанием).

Impact of ethno-cultural component on the development of agricultural land use of Russian Germans living in the Altai Territory

The scientific interest in the problems of ethnicity and the ethnic culture is reasoned by the process of globalization and the development of intercultural communications. The studies of ethnic groups and cultures are extremely relevant in connection with the formation of ethnic groups at different levels of development, of intra-ethnic cultural differences, including territorial ones, as well as inter-ethnic cultural similarities. The transformation of ethnic culture occurs under the influence of various factors, including geographic location, landscape, and neighborhood with other ethnic groups, mutual compliance. Global political and economic changes influence the ethno-cultural differentiation. The article analyzes the current sociocultural situation in rural areas with compact residence of the Russian Germans in the Altai Territory, discusses the factors influencing the development of the ethno-cultural component.

The “Discovery” of Albanians and Their Culture from Western Europe

Although Albanian inhabited areas are almost at the gates of Western Europe, historically, this country’s fate, identity and culture were ignored by Western Europe for almost five centuries, a period when Albanian territories existed as the periphery of the imperial Ottoman domination.The incipience of modernity, in the nineteenth century, was the time to restore the attention of Western Romantic Europe to Albanians and their culture, to their particular language, to the multifarious folk art, to the many crafts, the “magnificent” clothing and the archaic customs of this nation, as well as to the geography of the “majestic” and “virgin” landscape, the “impressive” architectural typologies of cities and dwellings. Interest in Albania at that time was related to the awareness (although delayed) that the Western Europe had to regain this Orientalised territory, which previously belonged both administratively and culturally to it. Albania’s destiny, to some extent, was linked from its beginnings, to European chancelleries and primarily their political and economic interests, and certainly their cultural interests as well, over this precious “threshold” territory (or “at the border”).The territory inhabited by Albanians was crisscrossed from the beginning of this century and on from all the categories of visitors. The first Europeans who reached the Albanian territories were diplomats, politicians, soldiers, merchants, and simultaneously many exploration anthropologists, historians, linguists, geologists, archaeologists, botanists, poets, painters and even thrill-seeking adventurers.This paper aims to provide evidence on the growing interest shown by Europe to Albania in the XIX century, an interest that will be examined in this case, focusing on its cultural and ethnological components rather than its political element. In particular, attention will be paid to how these foreigners explored and identified the autochthonous characteristics, intertwined with many influences from the foreign Ottoman culture. In the landscape geography, in the typologies of architectural constructions, urban organisation of inhabited centres, in the traditional crafts, traditional costumes and in the overall lifestyle, there aren’t represented straight aspects of cultural production and architectural creativity, but idiosyncratic phenomena generated by cultural interferences and a mix of superimposed or layered factors such as in a “palimpsest”, that are all mixed together representing the wealth classified nowadays as the material culture of our nation in that particular historical period, when Albania more than ever was perceived as a “frontier” territory, culturally more “East” and geographically more “West”.

Geographical Concentration of Knowledge- and Technology-Intensive Industries and City Innovation in China

Economic transformation and re-industrialization constantly change the geographical landscape of knowledge- and technology-intensive industries (KTI) globally, and the role of KTI agglomeration in city innovation is becoming increasingly decisive. Based on the employment data with a two-digit code in China’s 2010 Population Census, this paper compares the spatial difference between absolute and relative concentration of knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS) and technology-intensive manufacturing (TIM) in prefecture-level units, and interprets the diverse impact of KIBS and TIM specialisation on innovation in 286 prefecture-level cities. Results indicate that KIBS is concentrated mainly in the provincial capital cities, while the level of KIBS specialisation exceeds the national average in some border cities of the northwestern region and resource-based cities of the northeastern region. Unlike KIBS, TIM is highly concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the Beijing–Tianjin and Shandong Peninsula urban agglomerations. KIBS specialisation matters more in boosting city innovation than does TIM specialisation, and TIM specialization exerts a significant positive spatial spillover effect on city innovation. Our empirical results could be considered by policy-makers for the development of KTI and the promotion of city innovation.

‘Build memories’, collages on paper, 2017

‘Build Memories’ is a collage series that explores the layered historic and geographic landscape of Istanbul and Thessaloniki. The work focuses on the shared Byzantine and Ottoman past of the two cities, which is interlinked with the multicultural lives and transcultural memories of their inhabitants. The collaging of images of popular culture sourced from tourist catalogues of Greece and Turkey becomes in the work a strategy for the transformation of collective memories into a composite landscape. The collages literally build memory as a transcultural space deposited in the urban fabric.

From the archive: Two early 20th-century books on the physical geography of beaver landscapes

The recent publication of several books on the history and ecology of beavers ( Castor canadensis and Castor fiber) illustrates a renewed interest in the construction activities of beavers and their impacts on landscapes. Over one hundred years ago, two popular books on these same topics were published, In Beaver World and The Romance of the Beaver. These books, their authors, and their legacies can still inform today’s readers interested in beavers, ecosystem engineering, and zoogeomorphology.

Changes of Objecthood Shown in Travel Documentaries on North Korea

이 논문은 서구에서 2010년과 2018년에 각각 제작된 북한여행 다큐멘터리 <북한을 가다: 홀리데이 인 평양>과 <마이클 페일린 인 노스 코리아>를 미첼(W. J. T. Mitchell)의 제국주의적 대상성 이론에 기초하여 분석한 것이다. 미첼에 의하면 제국주의 이데올로기가 식민 대상지의 이미지에 투사될 경우, 대상성(objecthood)은 토템(totem), 페티시(fetish), 우상(idol)의 세 가지 범주로 나타난다. 조선 풍속화를 통한 조선의 이미지가 서구인에게는 토속적 정체성을 표상하는 토템, 오리엔탈리즘적 수집 대상으로서의 페티시, 조선의 전근대성이 부각된 타파대상인 우상으로 나타난다. 최근까지 서구에서는 북한의 이미지를 전근대적이고 적대적으로 부각시키면서 타파해야 할 우상적 대상성으로 인식해왔다. 19세기 제국주의 시대에는 제국의 일방적 의도에 따라 이미지가 생산, 복제, 유통되었으나, 디지털화된 현대에 와서는 과거의 영토적 제국주의와 달리 탈영토화 양상을 띠고 있으며, 이미지의 복제 방식도 평면적 회화에서 영상, 혹은 디지털화된 방식으로 복제되고 유통된다. 서구중심의 제국주의적 관점에서 보는 북한은 과거 제국주의 국가가 지정학적 경관의 변화에 따라 식민대상지의 이미지에 대해 토템, 페티시, 우상의 대상성을 부여하는 것과 유사하다. 평범한 배낭 여행가들이 등장하는 <북한을 가다>(2010)는 낙후되고 폐쇄된 기이한 여행지로서 북한을 다루었으므로 여전히 우상적 대상성을 상대적으로 강하게 띠고 있다. 반면 서구의 유명 스타를 주인공으로 하는 <마이클 페일린 인 노스코리아>(2018)는 현대적 관광지로서의 북한의 매력을 보여줌으로써 토템과 페티시적 성격이 강화되어 외부와의 소통가능성을 높인다. 이 두 편의 다큐멘터리는 남북대치에서 화해 분위기로의 지정학적 경관의 변화에 따라 우상적 대상성에서 페티시적 대상성으로의 변화를 보여준다.This paper analyzes, on the basis of W. J. T. Mitchell’s objecthood theory, two documentaries on travels in North Korea: Departures 3 (2010) and Michael Palin in North Korea (2018). W. J. T. Mitchell, a visual culture scholar, argues that, if the image of a colony-to-be is projected through imperialistic ideology, the image can reveal three objecthoods: totem, fetish and idol. The image of Joseon depicted in genre paintings embodies, to Westerners, three objecthoods: totem as a representation of folk identity, fetish as a collection object of orientalism, and idol as an object of iconoclasm for pre-modernism. Till recently, westerners, with a focus on outdated and hostile aspects of the image of North Korea, have perceived its image as the objecthood of idol, which is to be destroyed. While, in the 19th century, the age of imperialism, images were copied and circulated with the intent of western powers, in the contemporary digital era, with imperialism deterritorialized, images are replicated in multiple directions. From a Western-centered imperialist perspective, North Korea is in similar situation that 19th century imperialistic countries giving different objecthood to colonial country with totem, fetish and idols, depending on the changes in geopolitical landscape. Departures 3-North Korea(2010), where ordinary two went backpacking in North Korea, depicted the land as a backward, enclosed and exotic destination; hence the objecthood of idol in North Korean image still remained. In contrast, in Michael Palin in North Korea(2018), a famous star featured modern attractions of North Korea, which enhanced communication potential with westerners and the fetish objecthood of North Korean image. These two documentaries reveal not only the shift from idol to fetish in the objecthood of North Korean image, but also show the change in geographical landscape from cold war to detente between two Koreas.

A relict habitat became an isolated habitat in the Luoshan Nature Reserve from 1977 to 2017: Natural or man‐made disaster?

Understanding the ecological trends of the relict habitats in the Luoshan Nature Reserve (LNR) has an important role in the persistence of endangered species and the socio‐economic sustainability in the Ningxia section of the arid desertification belt in North China. Based on data from the Landsat Multispectral Scanner (MSS)/Thematic Mapper (TM)/Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+)/Operational Land Imager (OLI) sensors (from 1977 to 2017), the MODIS normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and net primary productivity (NPP) (from 2000 to 2017), the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) digital elevation model (DEM), annual average air temperature and precipitation (from 1977 to 2017), typical anthropogenic factors (population size, cultivated land and residential area) and natural ecological elements (MSS/TM/ETM+/OLI/MODIS NDVI and NPP) were quantitatively contrasted and analyzed for potential correlations. Some indicators of human activities, ecological processes and landscape geography have changed in the LNR. The proportion of residential area increased 3.09‐fold from 1977 to 2017. The population increased 34.30‐fold due to ecological immigration policy implementation in the Hongsipu immigration district. Before immigration, cultivated land increased, but after immigration, this land decreased quickly. Most of the dry‐cultivated land was converted through afforestation and a small part of the land was converted to irrigate cultivation land. We conclude that natural evolution led to the ecological relics, the isolated management to the LNR has objectively created an ecological island that will accelerate inbreeding depression and reduce biodiversity.

Energy of Reindeer Breeding: Driving Actions in the Controlling Impacts in Ecological and Ethno-Social Contexts

Sustainability of socio-ecological systems is ensured, firstly, through relatively powerful energy flows associated with the interaction of material components, and secondly, through the low energy controlling impacts that drive these flows. Reindeer herding is based on traditional patterns of controlling the flow of biological matter and energy that have developed in different ethnic communities and different types of geographic landscapes (“tundra feeds reindeer, reindeer feeds man”). These models include sustainable sets of traditional practices, including various methods of individual and group taming of animals, direct and indirect methods of controlling their behaviour, spatio-temporal models of seasonal movements of reindeer herds, etc. All together, they provide a symbiosis between reindeer herder communities and populations of domesticated reindeer. The energy of traditional reindeer breeding is based, on the one hand, on optimal strategies of movement in space, which allows obtain the maximum effect from the use of pasture fodder resources by optimizing the reindeer bodily heat balance. On the other hand, it is connected with the traditional practices, which help to save effort and energy in reindeer herd management. Adaptation of traditional reindeer breeding to industrial and post-industrial society is expressed in the transition to “gasoline” and “digital” reindeer herding. The first transition is accompanied by a dramatic increase in the systematic energy consumption, and the second, apparently, will lead to their reduction

Energy landscapes in Mozambique: The role of the extractive industries in a post-conflict environment

Rather than an integrated project of modernity, the provision of energy in Mozambique is characterized by social and territorial fragmentation. Our concern in this article is with spatial-political projects that enlist energy-related infrastructure as a means of furthering national unity across the national territory. We argue that the Mozambican state’s efforts to knit together its territory through energy provision have heightened divisions, such as between urban and rural areas, subnational regions and socioeconomic groups. We draw on geographical political economy and landscape research to consider the space and territoriality of Mozambique’s energy systems. We use the lens of energy landscapes to examine the spatialities and historical legacies of energy-related infrastructural state projects, and how such spatialities and legacies shape new energy projects. These landscapes are material expressions of the social, political and institutional relations bound up in energy extraction, distribution and consumption. They reflect historical legacies, revealing traces of successive developments. While previous studies have focused on local energy landscapes in a variety of settings, our aim is to examine how such landscapes connect with wider nation-building projects and the operation of political economies. To elucidate these points, we examine two energy-related projects and their landscapes in Mozambique: Cahora Bassa hydropower dam and the Moatize coal extraction zone. The article concludes by reflecting on the ways in which energy landscapes can be used to interrogate the dynamics of power inherent in energy systems, the evolving links between state power and electric power, and the interests being served by these developments.

Low income countries have the highest percentages of open access publication: A systematic computational analysis of the biomedical literature.

Open access publication rates have been steadily increasing over time. In spite of this growth, academics in low income settings struggle to gain access to the full canon of research literature. While the vast majority of open access repositories and funding organizations with open access policies are based in high income countries, the geographic patterns of open access publication itself are not well characterized. In this study, we developed a computational approach to better understand the topical and geographical landscape of open access publications in the biomedical research literature. Surprisingly, we found a strong negative correlation between country per capita income and the percentage of open access publication. Open access publication rates were particularly high in sub-Saharan Africa, but vastly lower in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and East Asia and the Pacific. These effects persisted when considering papers only bearing authors from within each region and income group. However, papers resulting from international collaborations did have a higher percentage of OA than single-country papers, and inter-regional collaboration increased OA publication for all world regions. There was no clear relationship between the number of open access policies in a region and the percentage of open access publications in that region. To understand the distribution of open access across topics of biomedical research, we examined keywords that were most enriched and depleted in open access papers. Keywords related to genomics, computational biology, animal models, and infectious disease were enriched in open access publications, while keywords related to the environment, nursing, and surgery were depleted in open access publications. This work identifies geographic regions and fields of research that could be priority areas for open access advocacy. The finding that open access publication rates are highest in sub-Saharan Africa and low income countries suggests that factors other than open access policy strongly influence authors’ decisions to make their work openly accessible. The high proportion of OA resulting from international collaborations indicates yet another benefit of collaborative research. Certain applied fields of medical research, notably nursing, surgery, and environmental fields, appear to have a greater proportion of fee-for-access publications, which presumably creates barriers that prevent researchers and practitioners in low income settings from accessing the literature in those fields.

Literary Narratives as a Tool for the Conservation of Indian Cultural Landscapes

The large majority of conservation and preservation projects tend to examine physical artefacts as ‘primary documents’ to effectively comprehend the multiple layers of a cultural landscape. There is the expectation that this analysis provides better insights into the transformation of these cultural landscapes over chronological time. However, besides built artefacts which undeniably carry history in their form and making, the existence of life events can also contribute towards an understanding of ‘palimpsestic reality’. On these lines, cultures, beliefs, and traditions are encoded within recurrent social practices such as celebrations, festivals and superstitions, thereby creating strands of oral traditions. These oral traditions pervade the histories of place and space, becoming the essence of place and serving as forms of communication of a shared traditional knowledge of art, ideas and cultural materials transferred between successive generations. Song and dialogue – reflecting the content of historical and mythical time – including folklore, poetry, prose, verses, chants and ballads, are central to these transmissions. Deep narratives also allow landscapes to initiate their own creation stories with respect to the transformation and adaptation to the particulars of site location, society, culture and traditional knowledge systems. Through focused ways of examining the historical geographies of traditional Indian landscapes, this paper seeks to understand the diverse ways in which resident populations express their complex relationships with these landscapes, associating with the transformations of these landscapes and reformulating their relationships to society.

Sound Landscape Geography of Poltava City

Sound Landscape Geography of Poltava City

Distance Matters: a more than euclidean approach to visualizing gerrymandering

Distance Matters: a more than euclidean approach to visualizing gerrymandering