A&M Geographers Edit Book on Land Change in the Tropics
Texas A&M University Geographers Wendy Jepson and Andrew Millington have edited a book that brings together cutting-edge research in the social, biogeophysical, and geographical information sciences to understand the dynamics that change land uses and land covers. The research examines land-use and land-cover change in Bolivia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, India, Malawi, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Senegal and Thailand. Land-Change Science in the Tropics is published by Springer Science & Business Media, 2008.
(Media-Newswire.com) - Texas A&M University Geographers Wendy Jepson and Andrew Millington have edited a book that brings together cutting-edge research in the social, biogeophysical, and geographical information sciences to understand the dynamics that change land uses and land covers. The research examines land-use and land-cover change in Bolivia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, India, Malawi, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Senegal and Thailand. Land-Change Science in the Tropics is published by Springer Science & Business Media, 2008.
Much of the research in land change science over the past decade focused on recent primary land-cover conversions and the explanation and prediction of deforestation in the tropics and sub-tropics. It largely ignored, however, the human and environmental dynamics that impact change as well.
This collection, which originated from papers presented at the Human Dimensions of Global Change Community open meeting in Bonn, Germany, in October 2005, includes contributors from around the world and draws on diverse case studies and disciplinary influences.
Each chapter advances one of three themes: 1 ) adaptations and change in settled agricultural zones, 2 ) agricultural intensification, and 3 ) markets and institutions. The book describes the monitoring of land-cover changes, explains the processes through which land is altered, and describes the development of spatially-explicit models to predict land change. It illustrates how practitioners have integrated knowledge from the three scientific realms - social, biophysical, and GIScience - that underpin land-change science.
Jepson is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography. Her research interests include human impacts on the environment, the political economy of environmental change, sustainability, and environmental justice and human security issues. She is currently an associate editor of the Journal of Latin American Geography and was named a 2006 Montague Scholar by the Texas A&M Center for Teaching Excellence.
Millington is interim director of the Environmental Programs in Geosciences. He joined the Department of Geography in 2005 as a professor after having held academic appointments at the University of Sierra Leone ( Africa ), the University of Reading ( England ) and the University of Leicester ( England ) where he served as head of department from 1995 to 2000. Millington has also been a consultant for the World Bank and European Union, and he edited one of the world's oldest and most highly ranked journals in geography, The Geographical Journal, from 1997 to 2002. He has done extensive work documenting four decades of development and deforestation in Bolivia.
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