Human Impact on the Natural Environment
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It has frequently been noted that to stay in print and updated for over 3 decades is somewhat of a feat; to remain a key text, considerably more so. And yet, Goudie has produced other, related, texts for the same publisher (Nature of the Environment, Changing Earth) and yet they haven’t caught the imagination in the same way. When this text first started, the interest in the environment, which had blossomed in the 1970s, was starting to wane. This was seen as a useful summary and a very good way of getting current, less US-centric information (think of the Odums and Ehrlichs) out to the general public but it wasn’t going to ignite interest in the way Carson. What we did have, by way of contrast, was a well-researched text that had both issues and background environmental and geographic concepts. It took the study away from the emotional side towards a more reasoned evaluation. Revisions have seemed to happen at roughly 5-year intervals until this latest version. The original format is there in that temporal perspectives dominate with a look at past, present and future but, over the years, data and examples have been upgraded and new work, added . There are no obvious changes in coverage between the sixth and current additions but there are upgrades in examples and data.
For those not familiar with the six previous incarnations, it’s worth outlining the way the book develops. It’s divided into two with the first section studying the past and present. An opening chapter acts as both an introduction and an overview. As introduction, the author takes a few pages to outline the development of human thought about and reactions to, environmental issues. From here, we move on to human development and colonisation before examining the impact of a range of societies, which forms the overview of human action. From this point, the next six chapters take a topic in turn and examine how people have affected it. The aim is not to mention every impact but to pick those most representative of human action through time. Taking chapter two, impact on vegetation, as an example, we can see how the thinking develops. We start with a brief review of the types of impact from using natural vegetation through degraded landscapes to artificial habitats. This serves to gives us a continuum of impact (and remind us that if vegetation is impacted, so are other ecosystem services, linking to other chapters). Appropriately, the first issue examined is fire. There are studies showing the impact both in the past (through pollen records) and the modern idea of fire suppression and the effect that has. This was often done to facilitate grazing, our next case. This moves rapidly to a major section on deforestation, one of the most pressing issues currently, but also in the past. This case is used to illustrate many of the issues involved in vegetation modification. A final few pages tackling, briefly, cases from the maquis to air pollution highlight the pervasive nature of the our impact.
Similar foci are developed in the other chapters. Each one has a major exemplar with a range of side points to illustrate the complexity of the situation. Chapter three looking at animals uses domestication as the main target (which we can characterise as deliberate spread) with cases of invasion (accidental spread) and decline/range change (impact of desired and other species). Soil has the twin cases of salinisation and erosion along with acidification. Not surprisingly, water discusses the cases of channel modification and pollution both of which have created serious issues in ecosystem services. The next topic is geomorphology, following the author’s interests in this area. It’s an area not often accepted in such terms but now that the human impact rivals the magnitude of natural processes it is important that we recognise it as such. We leave the past and present by considering human impact on climate with the current case of global warming and the more positive case of changing (often decreasing) pollution levels.
Moving into the ‘future’ section of the text the reader faces, the topics they have just left. Here, the future is one where climate change is the key issue that we face. Chapter eight, serving as the introduction to this section, demonstrates how climate change will impact all areas of geography. Despite this strong focus, successive chapters do not concentrate solely on the climate aspect. Chapter nine looking at coastal environments starts with that topic but also accepts other changes are important such as coastal urbanisation and coastal ecosystem modification. This is followed by hydrology and geomorphology and the cryosphere each chapter outlining the impact of climate. It’s not just the wetter areas – those already in moisture deficit will be badly impacted as work on drylands demonstrates. A final chapters concludes the text by discussing the magnitude and impact of all these changes and the possibilities of reversals. A glossary and formidable collection of references completes the book.
When it first came out 30 years ago it was one of the key texts that introduced students to the ideas of human impact. The advantages it had then were that the treatments of subjects were even (so you could get an overview of all key changes not just the author’s favourites) and the cases universal so we could see that this was not just a European or North American issue as many texts of the time demonstrated. Since that time I’ve followed the series (and reviewed a fair few). The text remains true to its original idea of providing a solid introductory grounding in a range of key environmental problems. Its greatest benefit is that it links theory with example so you get a solid grounding in both topic and current ideas of change. It’s very well illustrated and with a companion website allowing you to download images and tables there is no excuse not to use the book. It pleasing to say that the 7 editions have been leading texts of their time and the current one ably takes on the baton. Put simply, this is one text no school or university should be without; it’s one of the must-buys for 2013.
