Recent Landscape Research Articles

Entropy by design: Gilles Clément, Parc Henri Matisse and the Limits to Avant‐garde Urbanism

AbstractDerborence Island, an inaccessible concrete structure set in the middle of Lille's Parc Henri Matisse, is an intriguing example of recent landscape design. The park, which was completed in 1995 as part of the vast Euralille development, was designed by the French landscape architect Gilles Clément. The idea for the park is derived from several sources, including the aesthetic characteristics of uncultivated ground, the symbolic reconstruction of a fragment of primary forest and the enhancement of urban biodiversity. It is suggested that Clément's novel synthesis of nature and culture is significantly different from prevailing discourses of landscape design and is best interpreted as a form of site‐specific art. Clément's project reveals tensions between the aesthetic and scientific significance of so‐called ‘waste spaces’ in contemporary cities and the widening scope of utilitarian approaches to landscape design.RésuméL'île Derborence, structure de béton inaccessible au cæur du Parc Henri Matisse de Lille, est un exemple fascinant de conception paysagère récente. Le parc, réalisé en 1995 dans le cadre du vaste aménagement d'Euralille, a été créé par l'architecte paysagiste français Gilles Clément. Le projet a eu plusieurs sources d'inspiration, dont les caractéristiques esthétiques d'un terrain non cultivé, la reconstitution symbolique d'un fragment de forêt primaire et l'enrichissement de la biodiversité urbaine. La synthèse novatrice entre nature et culture qu'effectue Clément est très différente des courants dominants de la création paysagère et trouve sa meilleure interprétation comme forme artistique propre à un lieu. Le projet de Clément met en évidence des tensions entre l'importance esthétique et scientifique des espaces dits ‘à l'abandon’ dans les villes contemporaines, et la dimension accrue des approches utilitaristes dans l'aménagement des paysages.

Recent Landscape Archaeology in South America

South American archaeologists use the term landscape to analyze a broad range of relationships. Examples include intensive agriculture and political power, myth and place, and climate change and cultural development. Landscape archaeology is necessarily spatial analysis, but scholars work at different scales and use different methods. This essay highlights the influence of geography, anthropology, and new methodologies on four definitions of landscape: ecological habitat, built environment, a stage for performance, and integrating subsistence and settlement. In a number of cases, landscape archaeologists, stakeholders, and researchers from different traditions work at different scales to meaningfully share information, clarify their differences, and compare their analyses and conclusions.

Cattle Cults of the Arabian Neolithic and Early Territorial Societies

At the cusp of food production, Near Eastern societies adopted new territorial practices, including archaeologically visible sedentism and nonsedentary social defenses more challenging to identify archaeologically. New archaeological and paleoenvironmental evidence for Arabia's earliest-known sacrifices points to territorial maintenance in arid highland southern Yemen. Here sedentism was not an option prior to agriculture. Seasonally mobile pastoralists developed alternate practices to reify cohesive identities, maintain alliances, and defend territories. Archaeological and paleoenvironmental evidence implies cattle sacrifices were commemorated with a ring of more than 42 cattle skulls and a stone platform buried by 6,400-year-old floodplain sediments. Associated with numerous hearths, these cattle rites suggest feasting by a large gathering, with important sociopolitical ramifications for territories. A GIS analysis of the early Holocene landscape indicates constrained pasturage supporting small resident human populations. Cattle sacrifice in southern Arabia suggests a model of mid-Holocene Neolithic territorial pastoralism under environmental and cultural conditions that made sedentism unsusta

Small retailer strategies for battling the big boxes: a “Goliath” victory?

PurposeThe past 25 years have witnessed a dramatic rise in the dominance of big‐box retailers in the global retail sector and the decline of small retailers. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the intensity of competition with big box retailers moderates the relationship of strategy choice to expected growth.Design/methodology/approachThis study uses cross‐sectional survey data from a group of 199 small retailers in the USA. Hypotheses are tested using linear regression of expected growth on the use of three growth‐oriented strategies. These relationships are subjected to tests of the moderating effect of direct competition with big box retailers.FindingsThis study shows that small retailers pursue strategies of offering previously unavailable goods or services, high quality, and better service to pursue future growth. The interaction effect of strategy with directness of competition with big box retailers, however, has a negative and significant effect on expected growth.Research limitations/implicationsThe data set is from 2003 and is cross‐sectional. Future research on small retailers' strategic preferences should reflect a more recent competitive landscape and employ longitudinal data sets to establish cause‐and‐effect relationships.Practical implicationsSmall retailers need to understand that the strategies they use to pursue growth essentially become strategies for mere survival when competing directly against big box retailers. One small retailer's growth strategy is another small retailer's survival strategy, depending on direct competition with a big box retailer.Originality/valueThis study provides support for the argument that small retailers should pursue growth‐oriented strategies that create value and differentiate them from big box retailers. Under direct competition from big box retailers, however, these growth‐oriented strategies seemingly become mere means for survival. Small retailers need to be aware of blind spots that prevent them from understanding strategy‐performance relationships.

Interazioni tra clima, ambiente e uomo nell'evoluzione olocenica del delta del Tevere: dati paleobotanici e ritrovamenti archeologici

Climate, environment and man interactions in the Holocene evolution of the Tiber delta: palaeobotanical and archaeological data.The integration of palaeobotanical and archaeological data from recent studies carried out in the Tiber delta allows reconstructing the Holocene landscape evolution of the coastal area near Rome, revealing a long history of climate, environment and man interactions (Manfredini, 2002; D'Ambrogi et alii, 2009; Di Rita et alii, 2010; Bellotti et alii, 2011).The geomorphological, sedimentological, palaeobotanical and archaeological data from sites located in the northern and southern sides of the Tiber delta clearly document major environmental changes, including eustatic sea-level variations, geomorphologic processes, groundwater fluctuations, desiccation events and micro-climatic processes, which have produced dramatic and repeated landscape transformations, with inevitable repercussions on the local plant biodiversity and human communities.Human activity, documented in the area since the Neolithic and characterized by significant Eneolithic and Bronze Age settlements, appears to have had a marginal role in the landscape evolution. Only the Etruscan and Roman exploitation of the area for salt extraction produced an important impact on the landscape, becoming a major factor for environmental instability.When considered within the last thousands of years, the modern environmental situation appears a snap-shot, destined to new, abrupt and dramatic future changes.

014 Late Holocene landscape reconstruction of a highland river floodplain in Guatemala : Possible location of a Maya agricultural center

014 Late Holocene landscape reconstruction of a highland river floodplain in Guatemala : Possible location of a Maya agricultural center

352 Holocene landscape change from the seasonally Dry Tropics of north-eastern Australia

352 Holocene landscape change from the seasonally Dry Tropics of north-eastern Australia

Eastern Beringia and beyond: Late Wisconsinan and Holocene landscape dynamics along the Yukon Coastal Plain, Canada

Terrestrial permafrost archives along the Yukon Coastal Plain (northwest Canada) have recorded landscape development and environmental change since the Late Wisconsinan at the interface of unglaciated Beringia (i.e. Komakuk Beach) and the northwestern limit of the Laurentide Ice Sheet (i.e. Herschel Island). The objective of this paper is to compare the late glacial and Holocene landscape development on both sides of the former ice margin based on permafrost sequences and ground ice. Analyses at these sites involved a multi-proxy approach including: sedimentology, cryostratigraphy, palaeoecology of ostracods, stable water isotopes in ground ice, hydrochemistry, and AMS radiocarbon and infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL) dating. AMS and IRSL age determinations yielded full glacial ages at Komakuk Beach that is the northeastern limit of ice-free Beringia. Herschel Island to the east marks the Late Wisconsinan limit of the northwest Laurentide Ice Sheet and is composed of ice-thrust sediments containing plant detritus as young as 16.2calkaBP that might provide a maximum age on ice arrival. Late Wisconsinan ice wedges with sediment-rich fillings on Herschel Island are depleted in heavy oxygen isotopes (mean δ18O of −29.1‰); this, together with low d-excess values, indicates colder-than-modern winter temperatures and probably reduced snow depths. Grain-size distribution and fossil ostracod assemblages indicate that deglaciation of the Herschel Island ice-thrust moraine was accompanied by alluvial, proluvial, and eolian sedimentation on the adjacent unglaciated Yukon Coastal Plain until ~11calkaBP during a period of low glacio-eustatic sea level. The late glacial–Holocene transition was marked by higher-than-modern summer temperatures leading to permafrost degradation that began no later than 11.2calkaBP and caused a regional thaw unconformity. Cryostructures and ice wedges were truncated while organic matter was incorporated and soluble ions were leached in the thaw zone. Thermokarst activity led to the formation of ice-wedge casts and deposition of thermokarst lake sediments. These were subsequently covered by rapidly accumulating peat during the early Holocene Thermal Maximum. A rising permafrost table, reduced peat accumulation, and extensive ice-wedge growth resulted from climate cooling starting in the middle Holocene until the late 20th century. The reconstruction of palaeolandscape dynamics on the Yukon Coastal Plain and the eastern Beringian edge contributes to unraveling the linkages between ice sheet, ocean, and permafrost that have existed since the Late Wisconsinan.

Lost in translation? The challenges of an equitable post-disaster reconstruction process: Lessons from Chile

Built environment experts, steeped in their default modes of operation, have been critiqued in post-disaster scenarios as silent perpetrators of unsustainable solutions that focus solely on physical deliverables, rendering them as ‘useless’. This paper, grounding the analysis in the recent post-earthquake landscape of Chile and its reconstruction plan in Constitución, adopts a theoretical framework of post-colonial discourse to elucidate the significance of the notion of the ‘expert as translator’, activating the capacity to amplify the voices of those excluded by dominant forms of knowledge production. Such an attempt would aim to challenge architecture, urban design and the built environment – as disciplines and as practices – in planning for equitable reconstruction. Aligned with Lefebvre's socially produced space, the paper seeks to enlighten the idea of encouraging cultural agency and constructive insurgency in a post-disaster context. It examines how the adaptable, multiple, open, integrative and transformative qualities of reconstruction spaces are essential in responding to cultural differences and dynamic processes.

Fine-Scale Analysis Reveals Cryptic Landscape Genetic Structure in Desert Tortoises

Characterizing the effects of landscape features on genetic variation is essential for understanding how landscapes shape patterns of gene flow and spatial genetic structure of populations. Most landscape genetics studies have focused on patterns of gene flow at a regional scale. However, the genetic structure of populations at a local scale may be influenced by a unique suite of landscape variables that have little bearing on connectivity patterns observed at broader spatial scales. We investigated fine-scale spatial patterns of genetic variation and gene flow in relation to features of the landscape in desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii), using 859 tortoises genotyped at 16 microsatellite loci with associated data on geographic location, sex, elevation, slope, and soil type, and spatial relationship to putative barriers (power lines, roads). We used spatially explicit and non-explicit Bayesian clustering algorithms to partition the sample into discrete clusters, and characterize the relationships between genetic distance and ecological variables to identify factors with the greatest influence on gene flow at a local scale. Desert tortoises exhibit weak genetic structure at a local scale, and we identified two subpopulations across the study area. Although genetic differentiation between the subpopulations was low, our landscape genetic analysis identified both natural (slope) and anthropogenic (roads) landscape variables that have significantly influenced gene flow within this local population. We show that desert tortoise movements at a local scale are influenced by features of the landscape, and that these features are different than those that influence gene flow at larger scales. Our findings are important for desert tortoise conservation and management, particularly in light of recent translocation efforts in the region. More generally, our results indicate that recent landscape changes can affect gene flow at a local scale and that their effects can be detected almost immediately.

Climate change and human impact in central Spain during Roman times: High-resolution multi-proxy analysis of a tufa lake record (Somolinos, 1280m asl)

The Roman Period is considered a crucial phase in the evolution of Holocene landscapes, due to the coincidence of major climatic, environmental, economic and cultural changes. However, there is still debate as to the regional expression of these changes, and to the mechanisms involved, particularly in the topographically and climatically complex region of the Mediterranean. In order to improve our understanding of the synergies between societal and environmental change during this period in central Spain, we present a comprehensive case study based on the integration of multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental, archaeological and historical data.

Drivers of floristic change in large cities – A case study of Frankfurt/Main (Germany)

The main aim of the study is to reconstruct diversity of established vascular plants between 1800 and 2000 in today's area of Frankfurt/Main (Germany, Hesse) – using historical literature, herbarium vouchers, and a recent landscape survey – and to interpret changes (extinctions and gains) in the light of land use changes (drivers). Species numbers declined from 1800 (1232 species; 926 indigenous–228 archaeophytes–78 neophytes) to 1900 (1200 species; 871–219–110), and 2000 (1107 species; 698–166–252). The most important drivers for the loss of species (319 spp.) are use of fertilizers and herbicides, abandonment of wood pastures, abandonment and melioration of wet grassland. Most species gained (193 spp.) were intentionally introduced as ornamentals. Among the neophytes naturalized after 1800, short-living plants adapted to dry open habitats dominate. Plants using the C4 carbon fixation pathway (C4-plants) are predominantly neophytes. Drivers for the loss of species are general changes in land use. Nature conservation slackened the loss of species in the last decades; today about 3% of the vascular plants are conservation dependent. Comparatively high rates of short-living plants adapted to dry open habitats and C4-plants among neophytes indicate a warming of the climate. We expect a rising number of garden escapes. Furthermore, the flora will become more dependent on conservation measures. Remnants of now obsolete forms of land use like low nutrient grassland shall be integrated into parks and urban open spaces.

Evidence of an eolian ice-rich and stratified permafrost in Utopia Planitia, Mars

Western Utopia Planitia (UP) is dotted with scalloped depressions, small-sized polygons and pingo-like mounds. Within the planetary science community, there seems to be a general agreement that these relatively recent landscape features are indicative of an ice-rich permafrost. However, questions about the concentration of ice-content and the origin of the permafrost remain unanswered. The scalloped depressions (∼100m to few km in diam.) are thought to be the product of degradation of ground-ice by thawing or sublimation. Indeed, most of the scalloped depressions display bright bands on their floors. These have been described as possible exposed sedimentary layers, markers of recessional ponded water or slumped material by previous works. As the depressions could represent probes of the permafrost, therefore the study of the inner bands could help to investigate the permafrost. Here, we evaluate the disparate hypotheses of band origin using several HiRISE images and a HiRISE DEM. We show that the depressions have an inner stepped-profile. This profile is reminiscent of exhumed and tilted sedimentary layers of different cohesion. Using ArcGIS, we estimate the dip of several layers (n=52). The stratification is complex comprising layers of ∼2–4m thick having different shallow dips with generally a north or south plunge sense. This geometry of tilted layers is typical on Earth of fluviatile or eolian sedimentation. In the last few years, several evidences on Mars, among them the subkilometer-scale smoothing of the topography and climatic simulations, suggested that the northern mid-latitudes have been influenced by eolian processes. The inferred complex stratification inside scalloped depressions may support an eolian origin of the permafrost in UP. In periglacial regions on Earth where thermokarst lakes are formed by extensive thawing of ground-ice, ice-rich permafrost are composed of fluvial or eolian sediments containing ∼15–80% of ice by volume. By analogy, the wide occurrence of kilometric scalloped depressions in UP could assume an ice-rich permafrost of possibly same ice-content. The presence of this ice-rich and stratified permafrost raises interesting questions about its relatively recent formation and climatic significance.

Late glacial and holocene landscapes of central Beringia

New palynological and sedimentological data from St. Lawrence Island present a rare view into late-glacial and Holocene environments of the central Bering Land Bridge. The late glaciation was a time of dynamic landscape changes in south-central Beringia, with active thermokarst processes, including the formation and drainage of thaw lakes. The presence of such a wet, unstable substrate, if widespread, probably would have had an adverse impact on food sources and mobility for many of the large mammal populations. The establishment of Betula shrub tundra on the island suggests late-glacial summers that were warmer than present, consistent with regional paleoclimatic interpretations. However, the increasing proximity to the Bering Sea, as postglacial sea levels rose, modified the intensity of warming and prevented the establishment of deciduous forest as found in other areas of Beringia at this time. The mid- to late Holocene is marked by more stable land surfaces and development of Sphagnum and Cyperaceae peat deposits. The accumulation of organic deposits, decline of shrub Betula, and decrease in thermokarst disturbance suggest that conditions were cooler than the previous. A recent decline in peat accumulation at the study sites may relate to local geomorphology, but similar decreases have been noted for other arctic regions.

Characteristics of woodland changes in an agricultural landscape - The case of Gwangju

Recent landscape changes from human activities, such as agricultural development and urbanisation frequently result in the loss of habitats, the reduction in habitat patch size and an increasing isolation of habitat patches. However, there is little information on woodland changes in agricultural landscapes. Therefore, the aim of this research was to assess spatial characteristics and changes of woodland in an agricultural landscape and how these may have had an impact on ecological process for 33 years. One of the agricultural landscape character units was analysed based on aerial photographs from 1976, 1983, 1994, 2002 and 2009 in Gwangju city. The results indicated that landscape ecological metrics clearly showed that they could be used to monitor changes of woodland ecological conditions during the past 33 years. The results imply that particularly human activities have been leading to the decrease of the mean size of woodland patches and finally result in woodland isolation. These changes may have a negative impact on woodland bird species in the study area. This woodland information can be used to identify the potential and specific needs for setting priorities for conservation planning.

Diversity and genetic connectivity among populations of a threatened tree (Dalbergia nigra) in a recently fragmented landscape of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest

In this study we evaluated the influence of recent landscape fragmentation on the dynamics of remnant fragments from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. This biome is one of the richest in the world and has been extensively deforested and fragmented. We sampled five populations of the threatened Dalbergia nigra, a tree endemic to the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, two located in a large reserve of continuous forest and three in fragments of different sizes and levels of disturbance. In order to assess historical changes, considering the longevity of the analyzed species, 119 adults and 116 saplings were genotyped for six microsatellite loci. Lower levels of genetic diversity were found in the most impacted fragments when compared to the most preserved population located inside the reserve, and there was significant genetic structure among the populations studied (pairwise F(ST) = 0.031-0.152; pairwise D(EST) = 0.039-0.301). However, genetic structure among saplings (F ST) = 0.056; D(EST) = 0.231) was significantly lower than among adults (F(ST) = 0.088; D(EST) = 0.275). Estimates of contemporary gene flow based on assignment tests corroborated this result, suggesting that fragmentation led to an increase in gene flow. This connectivity among remnant fragments could mitigate the loss of genetic diversity through a metapopulation dynamic, but the high rate of habitat loss and the unknown long-term genetic effects add uncertainty. These results, taken together with the presence of private alleles in disturbed populations, highlight the importance of preserving the extant fragments.

Material input rates and dietary breadth during the Upper Paleolithic through Mesolithic at Franchthi and Klissoura 1 Caves (Peloponnese, Greece)

Two deeply stratified cave sites in southern Greece show how the relations between material input rates and human prey choice may reflect local site function and regional food supply effects simultaneously. The Upper Paleolithic through Mesolithic faunas at Klissoura Cave 1 and Franchthi Cave on the Argolid Peninsula (Peloponnese) provide clear evidence of diet expansion with time, based on increasing use of costly small animals. These cases also reflect, albeit to very different degrees, variation in occupation intensity as determined from sediment and artifact accumulation rates. Centrality is a critical issue for residential sites, and consistency (or the lack of it) in use provides a relative indication of site “importance” in the overall territory of foragers. Changes in site importance explain much of the variation in material inputs in Klissoura Cave 1, with the heaviest use of the site during the Upper Paleolithic and lighter use in the later periods. Small game data from Klissoura 1 nonetheless present a single general trend toward greater resource intensification with time. At Franchthi Cave, the intensity of occupations of the cave increased in tandem with intensified use of animal and plant resources. The parallel trends are explained by greater temporal consistency in the central importance of the latter site on the Pleistocene and early Holocene landscape.

Holocene survival of the wild horse in Europe: a matter of open landscape?

AbstractThe wild horse Equus ferus was one of the most frequent species of the Late Pleistocene large ungulate fauna in Eurasia and played an important role in the subsistence of human groups, especially at the end the Late Glacial. It is frequently assumed that E. ferus became extinct in Europe at the beginning of the Holocene because of the development of woodlands and loss of open habitats. Because of its preference for open habitats and in spite of its adaptability, the appearance or disappearance of the wild horse could therefore be a suitable palaeoecological indicator for the opening of the Holocene primeval woodlands. We revised the dating and reliability of the subfossil record and dated several bones by atomic mass spectrometry 14C dating. From the beginning of the Holocene (9600 cal a BC) to the end of the Atlantic Period (3750 cal a BC) there are 207 archaeological sites with wild horse records available in Europe. E. ferus survived the Pleistocene Holocene transition in Europe, but the spatiotemporal dynamics of populations fluctuated remarkably in the early and middle Holocene. Small and sparse populations increasingly became extinct during the early Holocene, until between 7100 and 5500 cal a BC the wild horse was almost absent in central parts of the European Lowlands. Particular conditions in natural open patches in the canopy forests, chalklands and floodplains may have maintained the local survival of the horse in some regions of the Lowlands, however. In the Late Atlantic, between 5500 and 3750 cal a BC the range of the wild horse was again extended. It re‐immigrated into central and western Europe, probably as a consequence of increasing landscape opening by Neolithic peoples. The data presented here may be a valuable part of the debate on the degree of openness of the early and middle Holocene landscape. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Late Holocene landscape reconstruction in the Land of Seven Rivers, Kazakhstan

A landscape reconstruction for the late Holocene was carried out in the Land of the Seven Rivers, Kazakhstan, to investigate the environmental conditions during the prehistoric nomadic occupation of the Sakes (∼1st mill. BC). Two sampling locations were sedimentologically analysed: a) radiocarbon-dated late Holocene colluvial deposits and b) fluvial deposits of assumed late Pleistocene to early Holocene age. The geochemical and mineralogical components (ICP element analysis, carbon contents, grain size distributions, X-ray diffractometry) were investigated to identify synsedimentary weathering conditions. A modified weathering index (mCIA) was used to evaluate the weathering processes. The mCIA results were compared with the silt-clay-ratio as an additional indicator for post-depositional soil forming processes. Differences within the silt-clay-ratios and mCIA indexes revealed that during the late Holocene, increased erosion processes occurred in the catchment. A first, tentative geochronology is based on radiocarbon and luminescence ages, ranging from 14.5 ± 1.4 ka to 3.23 ± 0.07 cal ka BP for the colluvial deposits. This paleoenvironmental reconstruction is supplemented by a detailed geomorphological characterization of the present landscape (relief, landforms and landscape units) close to the Sakian graves.

Science, interdisciplinarity, and the society

Science, interdisciplinarity, and the society