GEOS1002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Ecological Resilience, Ecological Collapse, Critical Geography
3 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
GEOS1002: Finals Notes
Lecture 1/Week 1: Intro
1.1 Intro to geography
1.1.1 Core concepts
• Space
o Fixed, Euclidean, Immutable
• Place
o Subjective, contested, fluid
• Scale
o Spatial (over space), temporal (over time)
• Human/environment interaction
o Tangible and intangible, positive and negative feedback, unpredictability and non-linearity
1.1.2 History of geography
• Physical and human geography is complementary sub-disciplines
• Geography developed distinctive professional identity in academy in second half of 19th C, geographical thought clear
lineage back to Herodotus etc.
• Prior to 1884, Geography not recognised as credible academic discipline with no formal intellectual community,
efforts by RGS in 1885 led to first positions in UK
• Mackinder (1887) conceptualised geography as integrative study of natural and social processes that was model for
single unified discipline
Geography in Australia
• USYD Dept of Geology in 1893, championed by Edgewroth David, Department of Geography founded in 1920
• Taylor embodied David’s view on an integrated Geography, famous for work on demography, population, race
Rise and fall of geological polymath
• Present dualism and specialisation within Geography – Taylor advocated single discipline
rather than muti-disciplinary polymaths
Rise of regionalism
• From mid 20th C: describe earth’s surface as product of interrelated phenomena based on
empirical study of regions
• Criticised for being descriptive not analytical with no overarching explanatory framework,
theory or laws, little traction for ‘real world problems’.
• Geography dept’s (Harvard 1948) disappeared, regionalism dominant mode in West during 1960s focusing on
quantitative spatial science, numerical modelling and stats
• Set stage for counter-positivist movt in discipline in following decades
Cultural turn - widening the gap
• Difference in approach, method, outlooks drove towards social sciences (broader, diverse thought) and further so
during rise of ‘critical geography’ of 1970s and 80s
• Pessimistic outlook – wide acceptance to focus on commonalities rather than differences in specialisation to ‘gear-up’
for future challenges where geographers suited to take lead roles
1.1.3 Geo as integrative discipline
• Thinking distinct from discipline – dualism of geography encourages unique perspective on issues arising from
human-environment interaction
• Literacy critical both to aspirations of national and global citizenry and challenge of competing in global economy
• Greater emphasis on policy-based solutions for global scale environmental problems, movt away from linear
command control responses, beyond traditional disciplinary training towards synthesis of information, concepts and
ideas
Lecture 2/Week 2: Socio-ecological systems
2.1 Systems thinking
• Reductionist, quantitative – focusing on operation of components and whole-of-system properties
• Definition: natural system is unit occupying space, compromising of components that interact to process inputs of
matter and energy into outputs of matter and energy that cross the boundary out of the system
• Diminishes the contingent nature of place
2.2 Socio-ecological systems (SES)
• Pervasive model in systems thinking
• Common to ‘human/environment geography’, earth sciences,
ecology etc.
• Social and natural phenomena are inseparably linked, no dualism
• As a system, it is definable in space and time (a unit)
2.2 Resilience
• Engineering resilience: time taken for perturbed ecosystem to
return to equilibrium – emphasis on linearity
and single stable state
o Measures amount of resilience that can be
taken before returning to original state
• Ecological resilience: magnitude of disturbance
required to trigger shift to new stable state –
emphasis on non-linearity and multiple stable
states
• Diagram – stable states and critical thresholds
• F2 in last diagram – has low resilience and can
be pushed over easily
• Stable attraction
o Perturbed system, low resilience, regime shift, new stable attraction vs. unperturbed system, high resilience,
strong stable attraction, where pi is resilience
o Degree of stable attraction is composed of Latitude (L) and how big the systems basin is – resistance (R) – the
‘depth’ of the basin or how strong the attraction is to the base and Precariousness (Pr), how close to a threshold
the system has become
2.2.1 Ecological resilience
• ‘Resilient’ ecosystems
o Diversity: number of species in the system, reduce threat to whole system if one species declines, mono-cultural
cropping isn’t resilient but brittle, sitting close to a threshold
o Modularity: degree to which a system is internally interdependent
o Speed of feedback mechanisms: how fast problems in one part of the system are detected in other parts of the
system (speed of response and adaption)
2.2.2 Sociological resilience
• Ability for community to tolerate perturbation but in different manner
o Diversity: skills, ideas, function and social capital (leadership, trust, memory, ability to organise and collectivise
action)
o Modularity: social capital, education, skills, health, overlapping institutions and reserves of human resources
o Rapid response and adaption: adaptive government, awareness of cross-scale and ‘external’ process, financial
resources (pump-priming in response to GFC), natural resources
• What makes community brittle or rigid
o Resource depletion: reliance on one natural or economic resources (e.g. fate of mining towns or Detroit car
industry)
o Lack of functional diversity: lack of skill base to support adaption
o Lack of social capital: inability to organise collectively in response to changing circumstances, social cohesion
o Lack of resources (natural/financial), variability of income (boom and bust)
o Impact of natural environmental variability: flood, fire, drought, plague
2.2.3 Linking types of resilience
• Resilience of community linked to resilience of ecosystem from which they draw resources
• Social: ability of groups or communities to cope with external stresses and disturbances as a result of social, political
and environmental change
• Ecological: characteristic of ecosystems to maintain themselves in the face of disturbance
• There is a clear link between social and ecological resilience, particularly for social groups or communities that are
dependent on ecological and environmental resources for their livelihoods. But it is not clear whether resilient
ecosystems enable resilient communities in such situations.
o Decreased ecological = lowered social for resource dependent communities (low resources, low income,
disparity, reduced ability to collectivise action, increased focus on yield not sustainability)
o Decreased social resilience results in perturbation of natural resources (clearing forest, reduced biodiversity
through exploitation of species previously considered uneconomical or of marginal value)
o Thus synergistic and co-evolutionary relationship
2.3 Adaptive systems
• Describe ecosystems as self-organising and reliant upon periods of ‘creative destruction’ and reorganisation in order
to achieve sustainability
• Panarchy
o Hierarchical structure in which SES are interlinked in never-ending adaptive cycles of growth, accumulation,
restructuring and renewal
o Specifically recognises processes operating at different geographical and temporal scales
o Large/slow processes have stabilising influence on smaller faster processes (parameter for small processes to
organise themselves) – small/fast processes generate tests and threats to larger processes
• Process of rise and collapse is recurrent cycle found through history – over exploitation of natural resources and
strong economic stratification can independently result in collapse –
Motesharrei, Ecological Economics, (2014)
2.4 Collapse
• Drastic decrease in human population size and
political/economical/social complexity over a considerable area, for
extended time (Diamond, 2005)
2.4.1 Diamonds Collapse thesis
• 5 factors underlie environmental collapse
o Environmental damage – resilience or fragility both social and natural
o Climate change
o Hostile neighbours (adaption of enviro stress)
o Reliance on friendly trade
o Societal response to environmental problems
• Society chooses to fail or survive through poor individual or group decision making (failure to anticipate, perceive,
act or succeed)
• Modern society are highly globalised (hyperconnected) meaning individual communities, states, society cannot ‘fail’ in
isolation (e.g. EU bailout)
2.4.2 Rethinking collapse
• Contrary position is that true collapse is extremely rare – social resilience is the rule rather than exception
• Criticism of assumption of self-interested motivation in poor decisions made in past societies (link between selfish
decisions and poor environmental outcomes not universal)
Document Summary
1. 1. 1 core concepts: space, fixed, euclidean, immutable, place, subjective, contested, fluid, scale, spatial (over space), temporal (over time, human/environment interaction, tangible and intangible, positive and negative feedback, unpredictability and non-linearity. Geography in australia: usyd dept of geology in 1893, championed by edgewroth david, department of geography founded in 1920, taylor embodied david"s view on an integrated geography, famous for work on demography, population, race. Rise and fall of geological polymath: present dualism and specialisation within geography taylor advocated single discipline rather than muti-disciplinary polymaths. 2. 2 socio-ecological systems (ses: pervasive model in systems thinking, common to human/environment geography", earth sciences, ecology etc, social and natural phenomena are inseparably linked, no dualism, as a system, it is definable in space and time (a unit) Depth" of the basin or how strong the attraction is to the base and precariousness (pr), how close to a threshold the system has become.
