Engaging the human process in earth science
Sustainability science research suggests that what elevates environmental problems from difficult to seemingly intractable is the role and behaviour of humans, at scales from individual to institutional.
02/06/2018 By BGS Press
In a (issue 125, 2018), I provided a perspective on engaging the human process in earth science. This reflects a long-lived interest, on my part and others’ across the BGS, in the need to engage earth science (particularly earth-surface sciences) in the development of solutions to so-called ‘wicked’ environmental problems.
If you are interested in learning more about the content of the Research Features article, please see the reference list; I’m also happy to send PDFs on papers that are open access. Send a request to our enquiries team.
There are a couple of concurrent activities that you might be interested in. The first is a special session at the annual Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December 2018, on the human process in Earth’s future. We are examining the human process in the context of wicked environmental problems.
Sustainability science research suggests that what elevates environmental problems from difficult to seemingly intractable is the role and behaviour of humans, at scales from individual to institutional. Our understanding of the human process within the earth science community, however, is largely cloaked in the disciplines of environmental and global-change science. Complementary analyses of the human process, particularly from a behavioural perspective, are available in the disciplines of sociology, social sciences, behavioural economics, psychology, marketing, business, land-use planning, environmental history, deep geography, and others.
Secondly, we are running workshop (funded by the British Council and the Newton Fund) in Hanoi on cascading coupled human-natural hazards. The human process is critical to understanding how natural hazards and possible disasters cascade through a rural-urban environment.
The English countryside, made largely by humans.
These are some other relevant and interesting articles that in one way or another address the role of humans in earth sciences. The papers that are connected to the article in Research Features are highlighted in bold text.
- Armstrong, S B, et al.2016.Earth’s Future, 4(12), 626ʦ635. doi:10.1002/2016EF000425
- Birkmann, J.2011.Natural Hazards, 58, 811ʦ840. doi:10.1007/s11069-011-9806-8
- Bogard, W C.1988.Sociological Perspectives, 31, 147ʦ168. doi:10.2307/1389080
- Chapman, A D, et al.2016.Climatic Change, 137, 593ʦ608. doi:10.1007/s10584-016-1684-3
- Collonteur, R A, et al.2015.Natural Hazards, 76, 373ʦ388. doi:10.1007/s11069-014-1496-6
- Criss, R E, and Shock, E L.2001.Geology, 29, 875ʦ878. doi:10.1130/0091-7613(2001)029<0875:FETFC>2.0.CO;2
- Di Baldassarre, G, et al.2017.Earth System Dynamics, 8, 225ʦ233. doi:10.5194/esd-8-225-2017
- Gill, J C, and Malamud, B D.2014.Reviews of Geophysics, 52, 680ʦ722. doi:10.1002/2013RG000445
- Gill, J C, and Malamud, B D.2016.
- Earth-Science Reviews, 166, 246ʦ269. doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2017.01.002
- Haff, P K.2010.Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 35, 1157ʦ1166. doi:10.1002/esp.1902
- Haff, P K.2012..Earth System Dynamics, 3, 149ʦ156. doi:10.5194/esd-3-149-2012
- Hall, D M, et al.2014.Environmental Modelling & Software, 55, 70ʦ76. doi:10.1016/j.envsoft.2014.01.007
- Kawasaki, A, et al.2017.International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 24, 151ʦ159. doi:10.1016/j.ijdrr.2017.06.004
- Kreibich, H, et al.2017.Earth’s Future, 5, 953ʦ965. doi:10.1002/2017EF000606
- Lazarus, E D, et al.2011.Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, 18(6), 989ʦ999. doi:10.5194/npg-18-989-2011
- Lazarus, E D, et al.2016.Geomorphology, 256, 81ʦ90. doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2015.07.043
- McNamara, D E, et al.2011.Geophysical Research Letters, 38. doi:10.1029/2011GL047207.
- Pescaroli, G, and Alexander, D.2015.A definition of cascading disasters and cascading effects: going beyond the ‘toppling dominos’ metaphor. In: Planet@Risk, 2(3): 58ʦ67. (Davos: Global Risk Forum GRF.)
- Peterson, T R.2015.European Journal of Sustainable Development, 4, 61ʦ76. doi:10.14207/ejsd.2015.v4n2p61
- Van Loon, A F, et al.2016.Nature Geoscience, 9, 89ʦ91. doi:10.1038/ngeo2646
- Wada, Y, et al.2017.Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 21, 4169ʦ4193. doi:10.5194/hess-21-4169-2017.
- Werner, B T, and McNamara, D E.2007.Geomorphology, 91, 393ʦ407. doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2007.04.020
See the for more.
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