bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Cultural Economy
Authors: Pratt Andy C.
Published: March 2017

The contemporary cultural industries comprise publishing, film, TV, music, and theater, in both their recorded and their live forms. Historically, culture was restricted to immaterial and material cultural heritage and the fine arts. The notion of the cultural economy encompasses both usages. The terminology “cultural economy” is new but derives from terms like “culture industry,” “cultural industries,” “creative industries,” “cultural and creative industries,” and “creative economy.” This field of activity spans the economic and social/cultural, for‐profit/not‐for‐profit, and formal/informal. Academics and policymakers have struggled to conceptualize and operationalize definitions; however, in the first decade of the twenty‐first century, agreement has been reached. The cultural economy has an unusual organizational structure related to a fluid, fast‐changing, and high‐risk environment. Novel organizational forms have developed; a characteristic one is temporary, project‐based working. This organizational form has distinct implications for the nature of work, and for the spatialites and governance of the cultural economy.
Measuring Spatial Dependence
Authors: Chun Yongwan , Griffith Daniel A.
Published: March 2017

Measuring spatial dependence is an essential process for diagnosing if conventional statistical approaches would produce proper results, and/or if spatial statistical methods need to be employed. It involves an operational framework in which spatial dependence is captured, numerical indices and their statistical properties that are used for a significance test, and graphics to visually portray spatial dependence. Because methods measuring spatial dependence depend on data types defined by, for example, geometry and measurement scale, different methods may be required for different types of datasets.
Imperialism
Authors: Anderson James
Published: March 2017

“Imperialism” is a highly contested and problematic concept, especially in today's world of politically independent national states. It can now be characterized as a mix of “old” and “new” forms. Reshaped by nationalism over several centuries, imperialism has adapted to new realities through capitalism's unique separation of political and economic power, while also retaining some older features. As seen in the exercise of American hegemony, the “new imperialism” faces new versions of old problems. These call for substantial continuities from the “old” imperialism, including the continuing, if more limited, importance of territoriality, theft, and physical force.
Environment, Nation, and “Race”
Authors: Palmer Lisa
Published: March 2017

Drawing on geography's historical origins and its modern‐day criticism of society–nature relations, this entry teases out the dynamic intersection of the concepts of environment, nation, and “race.” It examines how they find expression in the literature on imperial conquest; in the political spaces of contestation surrounding indigeneity and colonialism and postcolonialism; in the emergence of different approaches to environmental management, including conservation and community, climate change and related carbon budgeting; and in ideas about nature–society interrelations and multinatural futures in the Anthropocene.
Producer Services and Economic Development
Authors: Yeh Anthony G.O. , Yang Fiona F.
Published: March 2017

Over the past decades, producer services have undergone rapid growth and become a leading sector in shaping urban and regional economies in the Western world. Due to their importance, numerous efforts have been made to understand the spatial development of producer services and how this is related to the recent change in the urban system and within cities. The phenomenon of producer service growth also occurs in developing economies, although development still lags far behind that in the West. Western experiences have shed much important light on producer services and economic development in developing countries. But, embedded in a different economic and political context, how the growth trajectory of producer services in these countries conforms to that in advanced economies has raised important theoretical questions that require further research.
Gini Coefficient
Authors: Witlox Frank
Published: March 2017

The Gini coefficient indicates the extent to which an existing distribution deviates from a situation of perfect equality. It is a number in which the degree of inequality of developments and/or phenomena is expressed. The coefficient is usually used to measure income inequality but applications to other fields (like transport) are widespread.
Regional Development Policies
Authors: Meadows Graham
Published: March 2017

Regional development policies aim to reduce socioeconomic inequalities by stimulating development and can apply to a subset or all of a country's regions. They redistribute public finance spatially; can be decentralized tools for area regeneration and geographically based instruments for growth; and can operate in globalized markets. They consist of priority objectives, a multigovernance implementation system, a dedicated budget and a set of preferences regarding project content. This entry discusses the evolution of such policies, using European Union regional policy as an illustration. Regional policy is a volatile field – issues frequently arise, like quality of governance; link between policy interventions and free‐market ideologies; its classification as a macro‐economic policy instrument; definition of a region; how to measure progress; evaluation; and transferability of development know‐how. The entry concludes that regional development policy's spatial targeting offers macro‐economic policymakers a useful and additional instrument, especially when privatization has depleted the range of possible public investments.
Water Engineering
Authors: Hudson Paul F.
Published: March 2017

Water engineering involves a complex range of activities essential to the wellbeing of society and nature. The activities involved in water engineering include hydraulic engineering of coastal and freshwater environments, the latter primarily from a drainage basin perspective. Engineering of alluvial rivers requires an intricate knowledge of hydraulics and sedimentary processes, and involves a variety of physical structures. The process of engineering requires a sequence of activities which should be designed to optimize their efficiency while minimizing their environmental impact. While classical approaches emphasized “hard” engineering to minimize system dynamics, modern perspectives on river engineering involve the integration of a range of options designed to enhance or restore variability and system dynamics. The extensive legacy of river engineering activities means that relict structures frequently influence the active surface for which modern engineering is designed.
Glacier Inventory
Authors: Paul Frank
Published: March 2017

A glacier inventory is a key input dataset for many glacier‐related calculations. In general, it covers all glaciers in a country and provides data about each individual glacier (e.g., name, coordinates, area, length, mean elevation). Historically this information has been derived from aerial photography and topographic maps, but today it is usually derived from satellite imagery and digital elevation models (
DEMs
) using geographic information systems (
GIS
). As the latter provide the respective glacier outlines in a digital vector format, glacier specific changes can be calculated reliably. A globally complete glacier inventory in vector format has only recently been compiled by a community effort. This new dataset (the Randolph Glacier Inventory) was heavily used for a wide range of calculations in support of the fifth assessment report (
AR5
) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (
IPCC
).
Resampling, Raster
Authors: Zhu A‐Xing
Published: March 2017

Resampling is a process of transferring an existing raster dataset to a new raster dataset of the same data type. Two typical situations will call for resampling. The first is when two raster data layers representing different features are combined but one has a higher resolution than the other. In this case, the raster data layer with a higher resolution needs to be transformed into a data layer with the same resolution as the other. The second situation is when a raster data layer needs to be transformed into a different coordinate system. For example, a remote sensing image in the original image space needs to be transformed to a projected geographic coordinate system such as the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) grid system. Resampling creates the values of pixels in the new raster based on the values in the original raster. The methods, which can be used to create the new value, include the nearest neighbor, majority, and averaging methods, and bilinear and cubic convolution interpolation. The specific method to be used depends on the nature of the raster data. Resampling often results in loss of accuracy.
Soils of Desert Landscapes
Authors: McFadden Leslie D.
Published: March 2017

Soils that form in sparsely vegetated, warm deserts are mainly Aridisols and Entisols. Such soils can have argillic, calcic, and cambic horizons; indurated horizons such as the petrocalcic horizon occur on old, stable landforms; petrogypic or other indurated, salt‐containing horizons are found on older stable surfaces in hyperarid deserts. The soil‐forming environment of dry climates limits the depth of leaching and the magnitude of chemical weathering. Because desert soil‐forming processes and vegetation are very sensitive to small changes in water availability, Quaternary climate changes have influenced rates and processes of soil development in deserts. Variation in certain soil characteristics also strongly influences plant community characteristics. Many clay‐enriched Bt horizons form mainly by incorporation of dust, which is also responsible for accumulation of most soil carbonate, soluble salts, and silica and the formation of vesicular A horizons below desert pavements. These processes are critical to the development of soil profiles by accretion and inflation. Increased soil development adds to runoff and erosion potential in these sensitive and erodible soils. Thick, indurated horizons of soil carbonate and/or silica, however, can persist in the landscape for a million years or more. On geomorphically unstable desert hillslopes, limited soil development and physical weathering favor development of steep, bedrock‐dominated hillslopes. Favorable bedrock characteristics and/or high rates of dust accumulation locally lead to the development of soils and smooth, vegetation‐mantled hillslopes. Climate changes are likely responsible for the past and ongoing transformation of transport‐limited hillslopes to detachment‐limited hillslopes in some desert regions.
Models in Geomorphology
Authors: Baas Andreas C.W.
Published: March 2017

Models in geomorphology are conceptual, scale, or quantitative representations of an earth surface system. This entry describes various kinds of taxonomies and hierarchies for considering a wide spectrum of geomorphic modeling methodologies and attributes, with an emphasis on contemporary quantitative (computational) simulation models. Merits and objectives of geomorphic models are discussed with respect to validity, utility, and elegance.
Global Climate Models
Authors: Damon Matthews H. , Lamontagne Cassandra
Published: March 2017

Global climate models are three‐dimensional representations of the climate system and its components. Using mathematical equations, climate models can simulate the exchange of air, water, and energy between components, given user‐specified input parameters. Using model validation techniques and sensitivity studies, climate modelers can assess a model's accuracy in simulating global climate change as well as establish a cause‐and‐effect relationship between various climate drivers and observed changes. Projections of future global climate change can be obtained by specifying different scenarios of future greenhouse gas emissions. Output from global climate models can take the form of a time series of global change in a particular climate variable (such as temperature), or of a global map depicting the spatial pattern of change in that variable at a future point in time. A great deal of uncertainty is associated with climate modeling, stemming from unknown future emissions, intermodel uncertainty, and uncertainty about various climate processes.
Web‐Mapping Services
Authors: Peterson Michael P.
Published: March 2017

The making and distribution of maps has evolved over the centuries, and dramatically so during the past 50 years. Maps only started to be made by computer during the 1950s. Their distribution through the Internet in large numbers started in the mid‐1990s. Since then, a variety of server/client models has been used. The current system of map distribution is based on a tile‐based method that quickly presents maps at multiple scales and incorporates a simple method of panning. Although tile‐based mapping is disk and processor intensive, it has emerged as the most common form of map presentation – eclipsing other forms of computer mapping.
Agent‐Based Modeling
Authors: Parker Dawn C. , Robinson Derek T.
Published: March 2017

Agent‐based models of geographical systems (ABM‐GS) use computer simulation methodology to model complex geographic human–environment interactions. This entry defines ABM‐GS and describes their user community and realms of application. It characterizes sources of spatial, temporal, and behavioral complexity in geographical systems and demonstrates how ABM‐GS can be used to represent this complexity. It offers practical advice on their design and construction, then concludes with a brief discussion of limitations and challenges.
Geography Education: Promoting Diversity and Broadening Participation
Authors: Monk Janice
Published: March 2017

Diversity within geographic education has two main facets. The first concerns aspects of who studies and teaches in the discipline; how they represent society, particularly in terms of its “racial,” ethnic, gender, class, and other attributes; and initiatives to promote diversity in the profession. The second deals with ways in which curricula and pedagogical approaches are alert to these distinctions and to fostering social justice. The conclusion reflects on implications of larger political considerations as they shape interpretations and practices in supporting or inhibiting practices to foster diversity within education. Discussion emphasizes the United States but also offers examples from elsewhere.
Climatology: History
Authors: Mock Cary J.
Published: March 2017

Climatology as a discipline has increased tremendously in visibility over the past few decades. This evolution can be linked with historical developments of the discipline, aspects of which date back to around 1900, but the roots of some prominent current climate themes such as human‐induced climate change extend back centuries. Geographical climatology has evolved from a basic study of mostly climate description to one with an increased diversity in how it deals with climate data and observations, methods, interdisciplinary linkages, scale, and assessing climate–society relationships.
Representation: Indoor Spaces
Authors: Afyouni Imad , Ray Cyril , Claramunt Christophe
Published: March 2017

The objective of this entry is to review current spatial data models and mobile data management techniques available for indoor spaces. In particular, the role of contextual and semantic dimensions when representing moving objects and deriving navigation services in indoor spaces is studied. A series of recommendations are suggested for the development of data management approaches, querying techniques, and indoor location‐based services, and some research challenges that are still open are presented. At the implementation level, some of the performance issues related to the development of flexible indexing schemes for moving objects in indoor spaces are discussed. Finally, current strategies and computing architectures for continuous location‐dependent query processing, while considering different indoor settings, are briefly evaluated. The entry concluded with a brief survey of some of the possibilities offered by the generalization of indoor spatial models at the city scale.
Landforms of Other Planets
Authors: Hon René De
Published: March 2017

Planetary surfaces are shaped by a combination of processes determined by their size and location in the solar system. All planetary bodies were subjected to saturated cratering, volcanism, tectonic deformation, and mass wasting. Planetary bodies with little or no atmosphere, no resurfacing by volcanism, or no effective gradational processes retain highly cratered surfaces from their earliest history. Those bodies with active surface processes lose at least part of that cratering history and exhibit landform signatures of those processes. Gradation by water and ice is limited to those bodies with temperature ranges and atmospheric pressures that allow water to exist at the surface. Wind is an effective agent on only a few planetary bodies. Water volcanism and ice tectonism abound on the satellites of the outer solar system.
Multicriteria Decision‐Making
Authors: Jankowski Piotr
Published: March 2017

Multicriteria decision‐making (MCDM) has been a vibrant field of research for over 40 years with practical applications in such diverse domains as business, engineering, health care, environmental management, and regional planning. In geographical sciences, the interest in methods and applications of MCDM began initially in planning and accelerated with the ascent of geographic information systems. The entry reviews the origins of MCDM, its fundamental concepts, and methods relevant to applications in the geographical domain. It closes with a brief discussion of three areas holding promise for future developments at the intersection of MCDM and geography.
Spatial Social Networks
Authors: Tsou Ming‐Hsiang , Yang Jiue‐An
Published: March 2017

Social media (such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook) are powerful computer‐supported social networks for idea exchange and personal networking. Most social media messages contain spatial information in the form of geotags, user profiles, or place names in the messages, which can be used to create spatial social networks. Spatial social networks transform social networks into maps and information landscapes using real‐world locations or abstract coordinate systems. After the transformation, scientists can conduct space–time analyses, understand the diffusion of information, and identify spatial cluster patterns of network elements. Scientists now can trace, monitor, and analyze the dynamic change of social networks and social communications from a perspective of spatiotemporal analysis. These research efforts can help us understand the characteristics of innovation diffusion, enable the discovery of knowledge in cyberspace, and facilitate the emergence of a data‐driven computational social science.
River Basin Management and Development
Authors: Molle François
Published: March 2017

River basins are geographical units in which all streams drain to a common terminus, but as a political boundary it is also the result of a choice and social construction. The concept has, from the nineteenth century onward, chiefly been mobilized for justifying and rationalizing the large‐scale development of water resources by powerful water bureaucracies imbued with their “hydraulic mission.” Excessive development resulting in basin closure and social and environmental externalities must be understood as a political phenomenon. The relevance of looking at water‐related problems through the lens of the water basin has been debated and the complexity of multilevel governance unearthed, not least at the transboundary level. Whether river basin organizations are needed or desirable, and what their prerogatives should be, are also under question.
Postconflict Geographies
Authors: Unruh Jon D.
Published: March 2017

The spatial changes wrought by armed conflict produce postconflict geographies that are profoundly different from human geographies in stable settings. While battlefield encounters do influence the postconflict period, the spatial repercussions of disrupted livelihood patterns that are dependent on specific landscapes are much more important. After the end of a war, the spatial control still exerted by the different sides in the conflict, large‐scale population dislocation and resettlement, the pursuit of postconflict livelihoods, and the presence of landmines act to reconfigure human geographies over wide areas. The precise direction this reconfiguring takes then heavily influences the peace process.
Indigeneity
Authors: Hunt Sarah
Published: March 2017

Indigeneity is a relatively recent area of geographic scholarship. Conceptualizations of indigeneity are shifting and contested, and emerge within specific sociopolitical and historic contexts. Yet indigeneity has given rise to the originary place‐based modes of thinking and knowing across the globe, which existed long before the formation of the Western discipline of geography. Indigeneity can be understood from the diverse place‐based epistemologies of indigenous peoples themselves, as well as through representations of indigeneity within geography focused on common areas of critique from within the discipline in recent years. Efforts to strengthen the presence of indigenous peoples and worldviews within academic geographic inquiry have included the formalization of indigenous specialty groups and indigenous‐focused methodologies and publications. Future directions of indigeneity within the discipline will occur in relation to broad global movements of indigenous resurgence.
Data Model, Event‐Oriented
Authors: Stewart Kathleen
Published: March 2017

The development of theories that address spatiotemporal aspects of data modeling has attracted an increasing number of researchers from different disciplines. Advancing theories and data models for events is of importance to researchers in the field of geographic information science. Many of the dynamics that users are interested in representing in geographic information systems can be understood as events. This interest in events stems from the need to understand the range of dynamics for a particular domain, that is, to distinguish and classify different kinds of events that hold for a domain; to track the sequence and evolution of events over space and time; and to represent and visualize patterns and trends involving events, as well as predict where and when future events will occur.
Eolian Erosional Processes and Landforms
Authors: Laity Julie E.
Published: March 2017

Eolian erosion encompasses the abrasion of rocks by saltating sand grains and the deflation of fine materials. Of these two processes, abrasion is the easiest to identify, as it polishes and facets rocks, and commonly leaves behind characteristic features, including flutes, grooves, and pits. Wind erosion reaches its greatest extent and highest level of development in hyperarid and periglacial environments. Wind‐eroded rocks (ventifacts) also develop on beaches in temperate climates. Landforms of wind erosion develop in the zone of transportation between a sand source and a sink. They may be highly localized, such as ventifacts on a beach or hilltop, or extend over vast areas, as epitomized by the yardang systems of Africa and Asia. The orientation of flutes and grooves on ventifacts is controlled by the highest velocity winds in a region. Yardang forms represent the long‐term integration of erosion by strong wind systems.
Location‐Allocation Models
Authors: Storme Tom , Witlox Frank
Published: March 2017

Location‐allocation (LA) models use deductive algorithms to optimize the location of one or more facilities, like warehouses, manufacturing plants or public service facilities. In general, they are concerned with the question of how to serve or supply a given set of demand points across space in an optimal fashion. The algorithms typically do so by repeatedly assessing sets of potential locations for facilities against spatially dispersed sets of demand for these facilities. The models thereby aim to satisfy predetermined objective functions (e.g., maximizing coverage of space or minimizing overall transportation costs), given a number of criteria (e.g., number of facilities, facility capacities or transportation thresholds). In doing so, LA models typically combine data on facility, travel, or consumer characteristics. This wealth of data benefits the location decision, but it also implies that the model outcome heavily depends on the availability and accuracy of the input data.
M
arxist Geography
Authors: Belina Bernd
Published: March 2017

The comprehensive analysis of capitalist society as laid out in the work of Karl Marx (especially in the three volumes of
Das Kapital
, translated as
Capital
), and the tradition it established in academic thinking and political practice, forms the basis of Marxist geography. This analysis is fundamentally relational; that is, it understands phenomena as produced and as developing in and through relations between, for example, nature and culture, individual and society, discourses and materialities, or between social groups such as classes. It is also inherently political in that it understands that these relations are historically made in and through, power struggles and are therefore changeable.
Orientalism/Occidentalism
Authors: Minca Claudio , Ong Chin‐Ee
Published: March 2017

Orientalism and Occidentalism are interrelated concepts. Orientalism is defined in three keys ways: (i) as a study of “the Orient”; (ii) as a cultural and aesthetic concern with “the Orient”; and (iii) as a critical approach to understanding the construction of “the Orient” by European and American cultural authorities. Current geographical works have focused largely on the third. Defined in a critical way, Orientalism is also an idealized European vision that consisted of a long‐lasting collection of theory and practices with an elaborate material setup. Occidentalism, the calculated construction of “the West” or “the Occident” as a unified entity, is an inversion of the Western imaginary, a counterdiscourse to Orientalism, and a stage for thinking about and realizing alternative or new approaches. These definitions differ in terms of their recognition of the strength and durability of Western imperialism in orchestrating Orientalism.
Environment and the State
Authors: Whitehead Mark
Published: March 2017

This entry explores the nature of the relationship between states and the environment. In doing so it analyzes the history of state–environmental relations in different geographical contexts and introduces key theoretical frameworks that can help us understand these relations in new ways. Particular emphasis is given to the role of the state in managing environmental externalities and the ways in which environmental issues challenge the form and functions of states. This entry explores the different ways in which it is possible to understand states and environments, and how these different perspectives can enable us to see various ways in which environments and states are connected.
Children and Youth
Authors: Skelton Tracey
Published: March 2017

The relatively recent geographical focus on children and youth has developed rapidly into an established subdiscipline and has brought important social science approaches into the discipline of geography. The difficulty and complexity of accurately defining children, childhood, youth, and young people remains, but it has forced geographers to rethink the taken‐for‐granted character of these concepts. Geographies of children and young people are informed by research from across the globe. They work theoretically, conceptually, methodologically, and politically to challenge established geographical knowledge and render a substantive group of people more visible.
Global Climate Change
Authors: Porinchu David F.
Published: March 2017

Global climate change, despite increased scientific understanding of its causes and consequences, continues to be one of the most challenging issues currently facing the earth. Global climate change and increasing climate variability affects every aspect of the earth's biophysical environment, and by extension humanity. Placing the current rate of global and regional climate change in a broader temporal context establishes that the rate of change in global mean temperature in the late twentieth and early twenty‐first centuries is unique in earth's recent geologic history. The impacts associated with global climate change are many and include increased drought, sea level rise and coastal flooding, decreased agricultural productivity, altered biogeochemical cycles, and an increasing incidence of extreme weather events.
Biopolitics
Authors: Minca Claudio
Published: March 2017

The notion of biopolitics is at the core of many contemporary scholarly discussions involving both life and politics. Biopolitics originates from positivistic ideas in life and political sciences in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Michel Foucault's critical work on biopolitics in the 1970s, along with major contributions from contemporary scholars such as Giorgio Agamben and Donna Haraway, initiated the “biopolitical turn” in the social sciences and the humanities. In human geography, and especially political geography, efforts to consider biopolitics have yielded not only significant theoretical work but also rich and innovative empirical work, covering a wealth of diverse topics such as historical bio‐geopolitics, (post)colonial politics, biosecurity, state and population governance, spaces of exception, global health, (im)mobility, and animal and more‐than‐human geographies.
Hyperspectral Remote Sensing
Authors: Wang Ting , Lin Hui
Published: March 2017

Hyperspectral remote sensing is one of the most important and effective means of acquiring information about the surface of the Earth. Many countries and institutions have made great efforts in developing both data acquisition spectrometers and data processing algorithms. Hyperspectral science and technology has advanced significantly in the past two decades and already has been successfully applied to many fields. Hyperspectral data have broadband wavelength and very fine spectral resolution, and can provide critical information for material classification, land‐use change detection, and object recognition.
Microwave Remote Sensing
Authors: Chen Fulong
Published: March 2017

Microwave remote sensing, an indispensable earth observation technology, receives and analyzes signatures either transmitted or reflected from features using electromagnetic waves with wavelength primarily ranging from 1 mm to 100 cm. Microwave remote sensing can be divided into two categories, based on the type of sensor used: passive and active. The passive approach uses natural illumination energy emitted via either thermal or microwave radiation. The active approach, on the other hand, transmits its own energy toward earth; this interacts with the atmosphere and/or surface and reflects back toward the sensor. There are two types of data acquisition which are feasible through this technology, and techniques include the imaging systems of the microwave radiometer and side‐looking radar and the non‐imaging systems of the microwave scatterometer and altimeter. In the past half century, microwave remote sensing applications on ocean, land, atmosphere, and ice, for disaster mitigation, and even for archaeology and other areas of work have registered significant progress, particularly owing to their all‐weather, all‐day operational capability, which combines penetration and interferometry.
Cosmography
Authors: Holt‐Jensen Arild
Published: March 2017

Well into the seventeenth century, geographical writing was profoundly influenced by Greek and Latin classical writers, and a number of classical Greek words were used to define aspects of the subject. Thus “geography” combines
geo
(the earth) with
graphos
(“drawing” and, by extension, “description”). “Cosmography” involved the description of the universe (
cosmos
) and included what later developed as biology, cartography, geography, geophysics, and also anthropology.
Chorography
(
choros
= place) described places in general and larger areas, whereas “topography” was concerned with primarily the physical features of particular places at a smaller scale. Words ending in
‐logy
incorporate the Greek word
logos
, which signifies a rational principle or structure. (
Logos
is the “Word” which was “from the beginning” in the first chapter of St. John's Gospel.) So
logos
implies explanation rather than the description implied by
graphos
. “Chorology” suggests some explanation about places, just as “chronology” deals with time and how historical events can be seen as logical outcomes of a course of previous events. In analyses of the history of geography these concepts have been used and misused, often to underpin a preferred contemporary paradigm for the discipline.
System Dynamics
Authors: Metcalf Sara S. , Kum Susan S.
Published: March 2017

System dynamics is an approach to computational modeling that emphasizes the impacts of information feedback and delays upon simulated behavior over time. The central constructs in system dynamics are stocks, flows, and information feedback loops. Feedback loops are represented visually using causal maps to express dynamic hypotheses about reinforcing (positive) and balancing (negative) feedback mechanisms that govern system behavior. Reinforcing feedback amplifies changes, whereas balancing feedback counteracts or opposes changes. Structurally embodied in stocks (state variables) and flows (rates of change over time), the functional form of a system dynamics model is equivalent to a system of coupled ordinary differential equations. The system dynamics modeling process involves distinct but iterative stages for problem definition, causal mapping, model formulation, model testing, and policy analysis.
Fieldwork in Human Geography
Authors: Pope Cynthia , Price William
Published: March 2017

Bars, riverbanks, hospitals, bike paths, rainforests, gyms, factories, therapists' offices – the “field” for human geographers is multifaceted and global. Though the research topics are varied, there is a continuum in human geography concerning how researchers define the field, how fieldwork is conducted, and the how the results are analyzed. The entry begins with a description of historical approaches to human geography fieldwork, then consider the impact of the critical turn on how to define the field and the methods that can best reveal voices that hitherto had been marginalized. The entry concludes with a discussion of contemporary and future approaches to fieldwork from human geographers, highlighting mixed methods approaches to fieldwork and cyberspace as the most recent environment to be researched.
Photogrammetry:
3‐D
From Imagery
Authors: Wu Bo
Published: March 2017

Photogrammetry is the art, science, and technology of obtaining reliable measurements from images. This entry first provides a brief review of the historical development of photogrammetry, which is divided into the three stages of analog, analytical, and digital photogrammetry. Then, the fundamental principles for deriving 3‐D information from images via photogrammetry are discussed, including analytical image orientation procedures and automatic solutions for image matching and image orientation. Finally, some observations and considerations about the future development of photogrammetry are presented.
Environmental Certification and Eco‐Labeling
Authors: Mutersbaugh Tad
Published: March 2017

Certification is a set of practices that includes the writing of standards, the inspection and labeling of products that meet those standards, and the accreditation and auditing of producers, inspectors, and agencies involved in certification. This entry will discuss the growth and expansion of certification and certified product consumption, and address the following points. First, certification itself is becoming more standardized under ISO (International Organization for Standardization) guideline 17065. Second, certification networks have expanded to form a global certification industry that is linked to state agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and global institutions such as the World Trade Organization. Third, since certification practices impact environments and conservation organizations, these practices have become a source of contention between national and international institutions and agencies. Finally, certification practices shape the everyday lives of certified product producers such as farmers, foresters, and fishermen.
Safe Space
Authors: Mountz Alison
Published: March 2017

Safe space has been used by human geographers writing in the subdisciplines of feminist, queer, critical, and health geographies. Until recently, the term was rarely defined but instead used loosely to refer to physical locations where individuals and groups could go to be free from physical harm and harassment, and safe in self‐expression. The term has recently received more sustained attention, with efforts to critique and reconceptualize its meaning.
Choropleth Map
Authors: Torguson Jeffrey S.
Published: March 2017

The choropleth map is a common quantitative thematic map type in which magnitudes of area‐based statistics (usually derived attribute data) are portrayed by fill colors, shades, or patterns as they occur within the boundaries of the unit areas. They are easy to create in geographic information system (GIS) software, and are easily understood by the map‐reader. The attribute data are often grouped into classes to simplify the pattern of distribution for the map‐reader, and there are a number of classification methods that may be employed. If the map is not classified, the result is an unclassed choropleth map. The enumeration units are then symbolized so that colors, shades, patterns, and other visual variables portray areas of higher and lower attribute values. Other areas of concern to cartographers include legend design, projection, and other layout elements. Increasingly, choropleth maps are also used as mashups with other web delivery systems such as Google Maps.
Demand and Supply for Producer Services
Authors: Beyers William B.
Published: March 2017

Markets in capitalist economies operate through the interaction of the demand functions of businesses and consumers, and the supply functions of businesses. The general principles governing markets are described before extending this framework to incorporate evidence on the forces governing markets for producer services. Producer service markets are driven by the need for specialized expertise that often cannot easily be produced in‐house by purchasers. Niche market positions characterize most producer service firms. The demand for producer services as inputs in the production process has expanded due to the growing need for specialized expertise and expanded government regulations. Face‐to‐face meetings are important aspects of the production process for producer services, supplemented by digital means of communication.
Environmental Issues in Rural Areas
Authors: Wilson Geoff A.
Published: March 2017

While urban areas have received much academic and media attention with regard to environmental issues and threats, it is often thought that rural areas have been less affected by recent environmental challenges. Yet, in a globalizing world most rural areas have faced unprecedented environmental risks in recent years that are threatening the survival and resilience of many rural systems. This entry reviews human environmental interactions in rural areas from a historical perspective, discusses notions of productivist, multifunctional, and nonproductivist pathways of agricultural and rural change and their environmental implications, analyzes key governance and policy‐related challenges for rural environments, and discusses future environmental challenges for rural areas in the context of climate change, continued population growth, rural–urban migration/counterurbanization, and changing diets.
Representation: Dynamic Complex Systems
Authors: Robinson Derek T. , Brown Daniel G.
Published: March 2017

Spatial patterns emerge and evolve over time due to a myriad of underlying spatially dependent processes. Understanding these geographical processes requires the representation of dynamic complex systems and a spatial analysis that is dynamic. Studying these systems, then, requires conceptualizing and operationalizing approaches to represent relationships and interactions in space, over time, and at multiple scales that can produce emergent and aggregate patterns. This entry reviews these issues in representing dynamic complex systems in geographic research and identifies gaps and potential future directions of investigation.
Hydroclimatology and Hydrometeorology
Authors: Houser Paul
Published: March 2017

The water cycle describes exchanges of water in all its physical phases through Earth's systems of atmosphere, oceans, land, and the biosphere. Hydroclimatology and hydrometeorology are fields of study which focus on this cyclical nexus between hydrologic and atmospheric processes at different temporal and spatial scales. This consideration allows policy‐ and decision‐makers to more reliably predict hydrologic changes and extremes, and to model future water challenges.
Karst Processes and Landforms
Authors: Waele Jo De
Published: March 2017

Any landscape that develops on soluble rocks is called karst. The typical karst landforms, such as sinking streams, enclosed depressions, and caves, are caused by dissolution of rocks by surface and underground waters, while mechanical erosion is only of secondary importance. These areas are often important aquifers with a very distinctive hydrology, in which permeability derives from intergranular interconnected voids, fractures, and conduits, creating a highly anisotropic underground flow. Karst typically develops on limestones, dolostones, evaporites, and rock salt. Caves can act as traps of surface material, protecting it from surface erosion, and therefore can host important paleontological, paleoenvironmental, and archeological remains. Karst areas are also extremely specialized habitats, with important and often very vulnerable subterranean ecosystems. The vulnerability of karst requires unique management and protection strategies to be devised to preserve this natural heritage for future generations.
Nationalism and Geography
Authors: Mamadouh Virginie
Published: March 2017

Nationalism has proved to be one of the most powerful ideologies of the past two centuries and is certainly the most geographical one. Political claims based on national identities generally involve strong territorial claims and strategies. Geographical features are important to nationalist ideologies, and different types of nationalism, including
state nationalism
and
bottom‐up nationalism
(mobilizing against the existing state), may have different relationships to the geography of the territory they claim. Geographers have been directly and indirectly instrumental in nationalist projects: some have been nationalist activists while others have provided geographical expertise in negotiations in nationalist struggles. Geographers – as other social scientists – have contributed to the naturalization of nationalist ideologies through
methodological nationalism
. There is a rich literature of geographical approaches to nationalism that has explored its many facets, especially through case studies.
Coastal Zones
Authors: McBride Randolph A. , Seminack Christopher T.
Published: March 2017

The coastal zone, a broad transitional area between land and sea, has had a plethora of scientific and cultural definitions, many of which lack specific physical boundaries and are confusing and vague. At any single locality, the coastal zone may be characterized by physical, biological, or political criteria with little cross‐disciplinary collaboration or agreement on a common definition. This entry provides a global, geomorphological definition of the term “coastal zone” within the framework of identifiable physical boundaries. The coastal zone definition is based on large tectonic and erosional‐depositional features along continental margins, which can be thousands of kilometers long and up to 200 km wide, extending from the landward edge of Quaternary coastal plain seaward to the continental shelf break. Five primary types of coastal zones exist worldwide.
Ethics in Geography Fieldwork
Authors: Lunn Jenny
Published: March 2017

Although fieldwork has always been a core element of geography, concern with the ethical aspects of behavior in the field is relatively recent. Research ethics emerged after World War II and gradually spread from the medical sciences to other disciplines engaged in human subject research. This converged with various trends in geography from the 1970s which encouraged more critical perspectives on the interaction between the researcher and the field. The core principles of ethical research are respect, beneficence, and justice. While these are not particular to geography fieldwork, the diverse nature of geographical inquiry makes for a complex set of considerations. Ethical principles for geography fieldwork have been formalized in ethical codes, are taught to students, and are examined by institutional review boards, but there have been some critiques of the bureaucratization of ethics.
Historical Settlement:
A
frica
Authors: Seethal Cecil
Published: March 2017

This entry focuses on six of the earliest settlements in Africa: the settlements in the Upper Nile River region (Egypt), south central Africa, northeast Tigrai (Ethiopia), the Iron Age settlements in southern Africa, the early medieval settlements in North Africa, and the settlements in West Africa. It details the regional differences between settlements; their socioeconomic and political dimensions; the factors influencing their location, morphology, and functions; their production activities; and their trade, cultural links, and networks with the surrounding rural and other regions. The entry documents the materials used in building construction, the social hierarchy and social differences within regions, the divisions of labor, and issues of internal migration and expansion. The importance of linguistic and archaeological records in reconstructing the historical settlements is highlighted. Africa's historical settlements exhibit a rich diversity, with multifaceted characteristics highlighting different communities.
Regulation
Authors: Jones Martin
Published: March 2017

Regulation, the process of regulating or being regulated, is a geographical concern. Contra the thought processes of neoclassical economics and the assumptions of equilibrium and optimality, everything else is neither equal nor without hands. The economy, for instance, is not an unmediated outcome of universal and transhistorical processes operating across a featureless and stateless isotropic plane. It is a function of highly complex, messy, and geographically grounded processes in places and regions. There are two distinctive branches of regulation thought in geography: first, notions of “real” regulation and, second, regulation theory and the regulation approach.
Relational Assets
Authors: Pickles John
Published: March 2017

Central to the institutional turn in regional economic analysis is the concept of relational assets. If neoclassical approaches to regional economic development focused their attention on factors of production, resource endowments, and comparative advantage, the turn to the concept of relational assets focused on the ways in which interfirm behavior and competitiveness also depend on intangible, behavioral, and normative practices. Such assets have been identified with multinational businesses, global value chains, and global production networks, as well as localized networks of interaction, familiarity, and trust, such as metropolitan regions, industrial districts, and clusters. Relational assets act as differential social and spatial resources that provide advantages (or, in their absence, disadvantages) to businesses in specific locales and networks.