3 results
19 - Landscape ecology of the future: A regional interface of ecology and socioeconomics
- Edited by Jianguo Liu, Michigan State University, William W. Taylor, Michigan State University
-
- Book:
- Integrating Landscape Ecology into Natural Resource Management
- Published online:
- 14 January 2010
- Print publication:
- 01 August 2002, pp 461-465
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
My theme is that when it comes to land-use research, planning, and management, there is a need to enlarge the frame of reference from the landscape to the region. Although the term “landscape” is often extended beyond the dictionary definition of “an expanse of scenery seen by the eye in one view” to include what can be distinguished in an aerial photo or satellite image, a landscape is also described by the interactions of different identifiable units (sometimes called ecotypes) on the land surface which are based upon ecological, social, and economic considerations (Turner, 1989; Turner et al., 1996). In terms of an absolute spatial scale, a landscape is a large geographic expanse encompassing anywhere from ten to several thousand square kilometers (Bailey, 1996). While the landscape perspective in ecology has enlarged the scale at which research is carried out, a more appropriate scale for addressing many land-use, land-tenure, and environmental problems is the region, which is the focus of this chapter.
In the 1930s, social scientists promoted the concept of regionalism in which social indicators were used to compare different geographical and political regions. This concept considered regions to be large geographic expanses (e.g., multiple counties, or multiple states) based primarily upon political or social boundaries (Odum, 1936). My father, Howard W. Odum, and his faculty and staff at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, were leaders in developing this field. His books Southern Regions (1936) and American Regionalism (Odum and Moore, 1938) were very influential in shaping the political scene of North Carolina, and the southern region of the United States as a whole.
Foreword
- Edited by Jianguo Liu, Michigan State University, William W. Taylor, Michigan State University
-
- Book:
- Integrating Landscape Ecology into Natural Resource Management
- Published online:
- 14 January 2010
- Print publication:
- 01 August 2002, pp xiv-xv
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
As the scale of environmental problems expands, ecology, the basic science of the environment, must then meet the challenge and expand the scale of research and management recommendations. Fortunately, during the past 50 years or so, ecology has emerged from its roots in biology to become a standalone discipline that integrates organisms, the abiotic environment, and human affairs. Thus, we see the emphasis moving from the species level to the ecosystem level on up to the landscape level that deals with complex systems such as large watersheds. Size does matter; big is different from little, because new properties emerge with an increase in scale.
An increase in problems with pests is a good example of the need to consider the bigger picture, rather than just continue trying to deal with pest species one at a time. A large agricultural landscape with conservation tillage, a diversity of crops, and lots of natural vegetation buffer strips separating crop fields has much less trouble with insect pests than a continuous monocultural landscape.
Most important of all, preservation of the life-support environment can only be accomplished on a large scale. For instance, protection of water quality and stream corridors cannot be achieved through local zoning but requires political and management action at the state, regional, national, and ultimately, the global levels.
Landscape ecology is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary field. Its concepts, theories, and methods are uniquely relevant in addressing large-scale issues in natural resource management (e.g., biodiversity conservation, land-use planning). The contributors of this book effectively show how natural resource management can benefit from landscape ecology, and how landscape ecology can be advanced by tackling challenging problems in natural resource management.
A hierarchical approach to sustainable agriculture
- Richard Lowrance, Paul F. Hendrix, Eugene P. Odum
-
- Journal:
- American Journal of Alternative Agriculture / Volume 1 / Issue 4 / Fall 1986
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 13 November 2009, pp. 169-173
- Print publication:
- Fall 1986
-
- Article
- Export citation
-
“Sustainable agriculture” means many things to different people in agriculture. At least three different definitions of sustainability are available: sustainability as food sufficiency; sustainability as stewardship; and sustainability as community. Since increased human populations will cause demands for food to continue to grow in the foreseeable future, agricultural sustainability needs to be assessed in ways that will incorporate competing definitions. We suggest that analyzing agriculture as a hierarchical system is the appropriate way to incorporate different concepts of sustainability. Using this concept, we propose a hierarchical definition of sustainability. Agronomic sustainability refers to the ability of a tract of land to maintain productivity over a long period of time. Microeconomic sustainability is dependent on the ability of the farm, as the basic economic unit, to stay in business. Ecological sustainability depends on the maintenance of life-support systems provided by non-agricultural and non-industrial segments of a region. Macroeconomic sustainability is controlled by factors such as fiscal policies and interest rates which determine the viability of national agriculture systems. In our view, there are critical constraints to sustainability at different scales of the agricultural hierarchy. We propose that agronomic constraints are most important at the field scale; microeconomic constraints are dominant at the farm scale; ecological constraints override at the watershed or landscape scale; and macroeconomic constraints are foremost at the regional and national scale. In this paper, we describe the actions of these critical constraints, discuss interactions among various hierarchical levels, and propose ways that agricultural researchers and policy makers can integrate the various views of sustainability.